Triumph at Thank You Awards

Empire Fighting Chance shared a fantastic evening with local organisations at the Easton and Lawrence Hill Thank You Awards.Two people from Empire were recognised for their achievements over the past 12 months. Our volunteer of the year award went to Tiana Troup (pictured below) who starting volunteering for EFC March 2015 and immediately built a great relationship with her mentee. Tiana displays great empathy, is always looking to build confidence and resilience. Despite her heavy work load Tiana is in constant contact and provides fantastic emotional and practical support. She is a brilliant local female role model who reports weekly to EFC staff, display high quality mentoring and communication skills and is always a pleasure to be around.The second award was given to Mikey O'Connor who recently gained a place back in mainstream education following medium term intervention at Empire. “Mikey has turned our lives around since working with EFC,” these are the words of Mikey’s father Noel. Mikey has improved his behaviour and lifestyle significantly since working with Justin at EFC, so much so that he recently gained an ASDAN qualification in peer mentoring and is volunteering to help other young people who are in his previous position. He attends the gym 3/4 times per week and the other young people look to him as a role model for the positive changes he has made.Unfortunately Mikey could not attend the awards due to illness so his award was received by Empire's Programme Manager Jamie Parry.