Business leaders to mentor former gang members
Former gang members are able to turn their lives around through a business mentoring scheme in the West Midlands.
The scheme, The Blue Project, is looking for business people to act as mentors to former gang members.
REAL Leaders, a community interest company in Birmingham is in partnership with Leaders in Business, to give former gang members advice on leaving a life of crime behind and learning valuable business skills.
The government has recently announced a £300m investment to crackdown on drugs. The prime minister announced the ‘war on drugs’ saying “Drugs are driving a lot of misery and we can fix it. They’re not going to make you happier.
“They’re not going to make you more successful. They’re not going to make you cooler. They’re bad news.”
Richard Egan from The Blue Project said the scheme will complement the investment, helping young people to not go back into crime.
He said: “Many of our young people are not bad people, yet when you grow up in a deprived area, you don’t meet career professionals, let alone have a chance to be mentored by one.
“It’s a demanding and daring programme, but it’s also proving inspiring and exciting and it’s making a difference in so many ways.”
John Burton
Former drug baron John Burton, is among those professionals supporting the project.
John began his criminal career as a teenager and served long periods in prison for money laundering, cigarette smuggling as well as drugs offences. His story is featured on the Sky documentary Liverpool Narcos.
On leaving prison in 2017, he set up Inside Connections, a community interest company that helps young people leaving custody, care and the armed forces to find training and employment.
He said: “If I was offered the opportunity to sit with a mentor who had done well for themselves in business and I knew they had made a lot of money and done it right I would have changed my life a long time ago.
The Director of operations at REAL Leaders, Sally Ward, said mentors would also benefit from the scheme.
She said: “Using the skills that you’ve learned, you’ll be able to start to assess situations more quickly; think about how you can get the best out of the person you are working with and also consider what the best course of action might be to support that individual,” she said.
