Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams,it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concretewhen no one else ever cared.
Tupac Shakur 1971-1996
This is my second article for my blog. I am enjoying the fact that I am now writing- its very cathartic and I look forward to my next article. This article is very much coming from my heart. For a while now I have been mentoring a once homeless guy- Alain. It’s a scheme that Publicis, a former agency of mine, set up and I have been ‘mentoring’ Alain off and on for the last 4 years. Alain is a sensitive guy who for reasons he has never fully gone into, found himself on the streets with no job and little chance for a successful career. He is black and English is not his first language. He was born in France. I had never done anything like this before, but I felt that I could spare some of my time in the privileged world I live in and maybe… just maybe help someone who has not had the start I had.
I had no idea what to expect or what was expected of me. And I never dreamed the experience would be beneficial to me. At the beginning, I met with Alain every 2 weeks. Me being me, went into overdrive and tried to get Alain role playing, on the Internet and getting his CV to a good standard in the first few meetings. I realised early on that our worlds were so far apart that actually my role became less of a mentor but more of a friend- someone to support him, someone who would listen to him when he felt down, someone who would give him a bit of money at Christmas. Our meetings were quite infrequent- I often got frustrated as Alain would say he would come and meet me but often he would cancel at the last minute. In his world, this is probably usual. He got a job at Marks and Spencer and I used to go and see him now and then and say hello. He was doing well but one day he was caught stealing a toy and got sacked. This was very difficult for Alain, he was very down about the whole story. I was cross with him although I tried not to show it as I felt how could he be so stupid and give up his chance of breaking through the concrete. Anyhow, after a series of retail jobs, he is now working at Habitat part time.
Alain came over on sat to meet my mum, husband and my little baby boy Jedd. I hadn’t seen Alain for about 8 months. It warmed my heart to see him again. We spent the whole day together rather than our usual snatches of conversations in between my busy day. He introduced me to Tupac Shakur who I had previously never heard of. Tupac’s poetry is beautiful and brings sunshine and sadness into Alain’s life. It felt good to spend time with someone who wasn’t ‘white, middle class and in a well paying professional job in London.’ There are no superficial conversations with Alain. He talks about God (much to the annoyance of my agnostic husband), he talks about things that affect his soul, make him cry and weep. It made me think how your start in life is so important. We are all products of our beginnings. Alain unfortunately didn’t get a good start and is still struggling to break the poverty cycle and make something of his life. I hope that he can be the rose who breaks through the concrete. But if he doesn’t I will at least be there to care.
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