Kicking off a regular interview slot, 18-year-old Moktar Alatas explains how he’s launching a local peer mentoring project, aspire2inspire (a2i) to encourage disaffected teens into work and training. He is driven by the experience of his brother, who is currently serving a prison sentence for a minor offence. Moktar lives in Ladbroke Grove, in the west London borough of Kensington and Chelsea which boasts some of the capital’s most affluent streets as well as pockets of deprivation. He was involved in a youth-led documentary in his area run by the Octavia Foundation, a charity set up by social landlord Octavia Housing.

My name is Moktar Alatas.

I’m a first year law student at Brunel University.

I’m trying to set up a project to inspire hope and instill confidence into disengaged young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, mainly by drawing these young people back into the world of work and education.

I started doing this a month ago, even though the idea has been around for much longer.

I want to do this because I feel that the area that I live in needs something that can realistically go about challenging the barriers that many of us deal with. As a young person myself I know how hard getting employment can be, I would say however that my brother’s experience in going to prison, has truly been the inspiration behind the project.

My aim is to transform the lives of many of the young people in my area who feel that there isn’t any hope for them. I believe that if I can give these young people financial independence, then many of the social ills that are poverty driven, such as drugs, crime, will be eliminated. The idea is to conduct ‘social surgeries’. Young a2i members go out into the community, targeting ‘hard to reach’ areas, and talking to their fellow young people with the aim of bringing them into our offices with the incentive of getting a employment/training. Next, a series of steps, including one-to-one meeting to identify and overcome any barriers that that young person may have. Finally, we work with that young person to find suitable placement.

So far in just a month we’ve managed to get over 50 people on our books, conducted numerous CV workshops, helped three people into paid internships, and helped another young homeless person into housing.

I hope to raise funding for it through the work that we do. By this I mean that rather than a charity, I want a2i to function like an actual employment agency. This, I believe will better fit into the premise of big society.

The hardest thing so far has been trying to provide the service with an imaginary budget.

The most rewarding thing will be to prevent people from going to prison, and instead into employment and training.

I’d love to hear from you if you could help me with any ideas that you have on how to go about organising, fund raising and delivering the service.