The Diana Award’s Mentoring Programme will be delivering Online Work Experience from Monday 10th – Friday 14th July 2023, a week consisting of online sessions and panel discussions from professional volunteer mentors providing insight into the world of work. Here is your chance to meet the incredible speakers who are leading the activities across Online Work Experience week!
Over the last two years, over 130,000 young people have participated in our Online Work Experience. Last year alone, 90% of participating young people stated they feel hopeful about their career pathway and know the steps they need to take to reach their goals.
This year, we want to support even more young people to reach their potential. That is why we are delighted to share that The Diana Award Mentoring Programme will be delivering Online Work Experience from Monday 10th July to Friday 14th July 2023.
Across the week, there will be fifteen online sessions and panel discussions, giving young people the opportunity to hear from our professional volunteer mentors, all of which will be providing insight into various professions and industries. The week will be split into five different sectors:
This is your chance to find out more about our incredible Online Work Experience speakers and panellists. We have included a short bio of each speaker so you can learn more about each volunteer – if one of them interests you, why not register your interest to their talk by visiting the link at the bottom of the page.
Saba Ali
Saba is a lived-experience trauma and discrimination speaker and works with many governing bodies to facilitate change including the Crown Prosecution Service LISP for London Hate Crime and Violence Against Women & Girls. She sits on the Met Police Service Trans and Non-binary forum, LGBT+ Independent Advisory Group and co-Chair for their Community Reference Group. She is a trustee for Galop, the leading LGBT+ anti-abuse charity and Building Bridges for Peace who promote peace and conflict transformation.
Jade Barnett
Jade Barnett is a Senior Member of Young People’s Action Group under The Mayor of London’s Violence Reduction Unit, Young Ambassador for Connected Futures under Lewisham Council, Circle Collective and Phoenix Housing, an Outreach Youth Development Lead for The Prince’s Trust, a Youth Worker for Youth First and Knights Youth Club and a Freelance Speaker and Qualified Workshop Facilitator.
Jade is on her journey to become a full-time facilitator and speaker that advocates for a fair and ethical education system for all young people to thrive in - especially reducing school exclusions within London. Additionally, she wants to highlight the importance of investing in our young people through sustainable recourses and youth opportunities alongside raising awareness on the lack of support for Care Leavers and Looked After Children.
Jamilah Simpson
Jamilah Simpson is a digital marketer and content creator freelancer who currently works at The Diana Award, overseeing some of their Anti-Bullying partnership campaigns. After finishing her A-Levels, Jamilah secured a digital marketing apprenticeship at Google, where she worked with clients in the film and gaming industries to advise them on their marketing strategies. Since completing her apprenticeship, she worked at Multiverse, a tech scale-up, doing community programme management by supporting other apprentice’s personal and professional development.
Kate Asquith
Kate Asquith is an author and illustrator who works in the charity sector. She’s currently the Programme Manager (Youth Development) in the Anti-Bullying team at The Diana Award. In the past, she’s worked and volunteered for Girlguiding. Kate has recently published an activism handbook for teenagers called Louder! A guide to finding your voice and changing the world, which explores the power of language, media literacy and how to use words to enact social change.
Maariyah Rashid
Maariyah Rashid currently works at Social Enterprise UK, delivering their general election campaign to get social enterprise on the agendas of policymakers, elected officials, and businesses. Prior to this, she has worked for members of parliament and in the charity sector. She is passionate about building safe spaces for marginalised communities to thrive and tries to bring elements of this into all work she does.
Nasir Rashid
Nasir Rashid has worked in the construction industry for the past 15 years, he started as an apprentice and worked his way up, holding senior roles from branch management to sales. He is currently working as a Regional Key Account Manager for Keyline, driving sales and nurturing relationships with contractors. He is passionate about ensuring there are equal opportunities for all, through supporting his teams, colleagues, and giving back when possible.
Maariyah Elias
Maariyah been working for Lloyds Banking Group for 3 and a half years. She has experience in personal, business and commercial banking. She initially applied to university with the intentions of studying Law with the goal to become a human rights solicitor. However, while some Universities offered Maariyah a place to study Law, her first choice did not. Instead, she decided to study history and then later apply for a Law conversion course. During her diploma and master's in law, Maariyah was working part-time at the bank and instantly loved it. Ever since then she has stayed at the bank and has gained experience and skills in a variety of different roles.
Gloria Ukoh
Gloria Ukoh is a Senior Internal & Digital Communications professional at Smart DCC. After graduating from The University of Essex with a degree in English Literature, she landed her first role in a creative marketing placement with Livity and Sky, aiming to get more people of colour in the media & advertising industry. She also previously worked as a Graphic Designer with a youth marketing agency (VAGUE) and her most notable achievement was working on the UK release for ‘Queen & Slim’. Now with a background in non-profit, media and academia, her work primarily focuses on creating accessible and engaging content in-person and on digital platforms. When she isn’t working, Gloria can usually be found either designing or playing games.
Matt Doughty
Matt has a background in Psychology, having studied at the University of Birmingham from 2016 to 2020. During his time at University, Matt had the opportunity to study abroad in San Francisco, California, between 2018 and 2019, where he was taught Sports Psychology by Dr David Matsumoto, who was previously head coach of the USA Judo team at the 1996 (Atlanta) and 2000 (Sydney) Olympic games. Upon his return to Birmingham in 2019 and inspired by his lectures with Dr Matsumoto, Matt’s dissertation studied Posttraumatic Growth in University athletes who suffered from serious sports injuries. Following graduation in the summer of 2020, Matt moved to London in October 2020 (the first day of the second lockdown) without a job, placing himself on universal credit to take an educated risk and show to potential employers that he was motivated to kickstart his career in Human Resources (HR).
In his spare time, Matt is studying part-time to obtain a CIPD Level 5 Associate Diploma in People Management. Matt also enjoys listening to music, going to the gym, cooking, watching football, and playing Xbox with his housemates.
Christie Doyle-John
Christie is an experienced Product Designer with a decade of expertise in creating user-centred digital experiences across agencies, notable companies like Net-a-porter and Google, and start-ups. Her passion lies in crafting meaningful and delightful experiences that meet both user and business needs. Notable career highlights include re-designing Mr Porter's Journal content experience, localising Net-a-porter's site for the Middle East in Arabic, and contributing to the Collections feature release for Android's native Google Search app.
If you are a young person, you can register yourself below to virtually attend the Online Work Experience. If you are a teacher or youth worker, you can register on behalf of your young person / people.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact The Diana Award Mentoring Team at mentor@diana-award.org.uk
The Diana Award recently launched our first Youth Insights Report, focused on Youth Voice in Politics. To ensure youth involvement from the ground up, we involved Peer Researchers throughout the process to help connect us with the stories and experiences of young people. Follow Peer Researchers Gracie and Arthur, as they journey towards improving levels of youth engagement in politics and discuss the power of young people as facilitators, analysts, and champions for change.
International Youth Day, celebrated annually on 12 August, is a global celebration of the contributions, aspirations, and potential of young people around the world. It is a day of significance at The Diana Award, and to celebrate this year, we asked two young people from across our programmes to talk about a topic close to their hearts. This article, written by Iola Nkau, Co-producer on The Diana Award Young Changemakers Programme, highlights the difficulty young people have in finding and accessing GP services. The second article, written by Centre for Social Action Co-Designer, Obinna Emmanuel Ezeani, highlights the need for youth inclusion and diverse representation in decision-making processes.
International Youth Day, celebrated annually on 12 August, is a global celebration of the contributions, aspirations, and potential of young people around the world. It is a day of significance at The Diana Award, and to celebrate this year, we asked two young people from across our programmes to talk about a topic close to their hearts. This article, written by Iola Nkau, Co-producer on The Diana Award Young Changemakers Programme, highlights the difficulty young people have in finding and accessing GP services. The second article, written by Centre for Social Action Co-Designer, Obinna Emmanuel Ezeani, highlights the need for youth inclusion and diverse representation in decision-making processes.
