This week saw over 90 Mosaic senior supporters attending a special lunch event at the Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton. The event was generously hosted by Kevin McGrath, the High Sheriff of Greater London in what was his final day in the role.

The event aimed to showcase Mosaic’s Ex-Offender Mentoring programme amongst key stakeholders and also to recruit employers to support the programme through the provision of mentors and/or in providing support to the new employability initiative of the programme. The lunch event was also aiming to appeal to potential funders for different streams related to Mosaic’s ex-offender work, including a research project with the Prison Reform Trust.

Kevin McGrath commented: “It was a great pleasure to host this event at the Clink Restaurant. The Mosaic ex-offender mentoring programme is a hugely beneficial initiative with national reach and to have mentors with their mentees here talking about their experiences and sharing the positive impacts the scheme is delivering, was very inspirational.”

Jonathan Freeman, managing director of Mosaic, commented: “It was great to see such a fantastic show of support for the ex-offender programme at this event and a great deal of interest from potential corporate supporters, which is very encouraging. In the years since it has been established we have formed relationships with 15 prisons and Youth Offending Teams nationally, supported approximately 200 individuals transitioning out of custody, trained over 200 mentors and delivered a reoffending rate 20% lower than the national average. We’d like to thank everyone who attended on the day for their willingness to see for themselves the amazing opportunities that the programme is providing to both ex-offenders and mentors.”

Ex-offender, Ousama Rhanmia (26) who spoke at the event said: “I was more than happy to participate in this event after the support I was shown by Mosaic. The mentoring programme has helped me massively and I can’t thank Mosaic or my mentor Raja enough. When I was in prison the programme really appealed to me as I felt it was designed to fit my own criteria and it gave me the motivation to apply myself and take all the opportunities available to me whilst serving my sentence.”