Over 2000 people volunteer to mentor black boys

More than 2,000 adult volunteers - double the number expected - have responded to the Mayor Boris Johnson's call to recruit 1000 adult volunteers to mentor black boys at risk of offending.

Many of the volunteers have been recruited during the Mayor's Community Conversations Programme, a series of events designed to work directly with the communities most affected by serious youth violence. The Mayor will announce the progress on his mentoring scheme at this evening's Community Conversation event in Lambeth.

The mentoring scheme, which is part of the Mayor’s pioneering Team London drive to maximise volunteering in London, has now recruited 2040 volunteers to be put forward to train as mentors, just as the first mentors and mentees have been paired up this week in Waltham Forest and Brent, two of the seven mentoring boroughs, including Lambeth.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: "I want to thank everyone who has taken part in what has been the most ambitious community engagement programme ever attempted by City Hall. Over the last nine months these events have helped recruit over 2,000 decent young men to join our drive to tackle serious youth violence through my mentoring scheme. They have also helped us to tackle some of the many difficult issues behind youth violence in the city, well before the disturbances of this summer, for which I am indebted."

The Mayor's Mentoring Programme under Team London will provide appropriately trained adult mentors for a year, to a minimum of 1,000 black boys who may be at risk of offending, whether as victims or perpetrators. The programme will initially run for three years in seven London boroughs with a disproportionate problem with criminality. The initial mentoring boroughs are Brent, Croydon, Hackney, Haringey, Lambeth, Southwark and Waltham Forest.