Abdul didn’t come to Habs Aspire with a plan. He came, by his own admission, because he was bored of the same old routine and wanted something more. But even he wasn’t quite sure what he’d signed up for.
Speaking at Haberdashers’ Hall as part of a Habs Aspire celebration, Abdul reflected on his first impressions of Habs Aspire. He remembers standing at the Aspire launch event with a classmate, thinking:
“This is random. I didn’t think this is how I’d be spending my evening.”
Many mentees will recognise this slightly bemused starting point, and its exactly these mentees who stand to benefit the most from Habs Aspire.
Everything shifted once Abdul was paired with his mentor, Philip. Through a year of conversations, Abdul says he finally understood why he’d shown up to that first launch event at all – and found the confidence to articulate what he wanted from the experience.
When asked what he gained from the programme, Abdul’s answer is very practical: versatile speaking skills. Not just confidence at a podium, but the ability to adapt to different people and different situations – job interviews, internship applications, apprenticeship processes, even everyday conversations – and to handle them with more ease and more comfortably than he could before.
He’s candid, too, about what didn’t come easily. Public speaking, in particular, is something he still jokes about every time he takes the stage at Habs Hall – a nod to how far he’s come, and how far he still feels he has to go.
Beyond confidence, Abdul credits his mentor with helping him gain clarity about his future pathway. Through his talks with Philip, he was pushed to properly research pharmacy – a field he wants to go into, but hadn’t fully understood until those conversations prompted him to dig deeper into what the profession actually involves.
“I would have never learned more about the course I’m so headstrong about if it wasn’t for my talks with my amazing mentor, Philip.”
Abdul closed his speech with a challenge to the room. Everyone, he said, is trying to win at life – but not everyone is equipped to. Mentors, he pointed out, understand the sleepless nights and the constant rejection better than most.
Abdul calls on all of us to be the person who helps a young person lay a steady foundation. The ambition is already there: it’s the foundation that’s still being built.
We need more mentors to sign up, so that we can continue to support young people like Abdul. Find out more about becoming a Habs Aspire mentor, or help us spread the word by sharing the link with a friend or colleague.
