One of MGRP’s key objectives is to advance equity in
education, tackle poverty and financial insecurity linked with poor education
in disadvantaged areas such as Marks Gate and North Chadwell Heath. MGRP has
attracted a talented team of volunteers including professionals and students
such as accountants, retired midwives, nurses, engineers, school work
experience pupils, Michelin Star chefs and lawyers who have taken time off work
to volunteer with us- it is a whole big community effort.
The objective
of the free of cost GCSE and A-level Triple Science & Maths lessons
(tutoring) is to create a stable foundation for these subject areas and provide
encouragement, assistance and uptake with university admissions for
undergraduate programs in science, engineering, technology and medicine. The
lessons are coupled with the soup kitchen and clothing/book bank so that pupils
who arrive hungry are first fed and their various basic needs are met before
they are tutored.
Pupils from
impoverished backgrounds also include refugees, asylum seekers, children of
illegal immigrants, children in foster care, and/or those who have been
homeless or at a risk of homelessness. MGRP has been providing them with
counselling, mental health support, food/fuel vouchers, self-defence training
(especially for girls), sexual health advice and careers advice. Girls who are
at risk of FGM, sexual exploitation, forced marriage or honour crimes are part
of a Community Based Education Program that fosters academic and
extra-curricular excellence whilst thriving as an integral and dignified member
of the community.
In 2021, Marks Gate Relief
Project taught free GCSE Chemistry lessons to 250 pupils in Marks Gate. 65% of
them arrived hungry; of these, 16 % could not afford a new school blazer and
35% had lost their calculator and other stationary supplies for which they were
awaiting their parents' next UC payment to be able to afford a new one. In
2022, pupils who were tutored by MGRP said they could not experience a rich,
positive home-learning environment due lack of heating at home and restricted
access to fuel vouchers. In 2023, 39 of the 487 pupils tutored by MGRP so far
have gone off to University while another 89 are enrolled in apprenticeship
programs with degrees in engineering or teaching. 5 of the 487 pupils have
enrolled in Oxford, Cambridge, Queen Mary, ICL and UCL, and have dedicated
their voluntary time and effort to give back to MGRP's free tutoring lessons,
soup kitchen and food bank. The
tutors have lived experiences of poverty and are determined to break the cycle
of generational poverty and the barriers it poses to education.
