Winner of Princess Badiya Mentor of the Year Award announced

We are thrilled to announce that Saira Majid is our Mentor of the Year, winning the inaugural Princess Badiya Mentor of the Year Award. Busy Chartered Accountant and mum-of-three Saira has mentored in 5 schools over a 3 year period and has mentored two teams to the final of Enterprise Challenge; this year Beechwood School from Slough came an impressive 2nd overall.

After being announced as the winner, an emotional Saira commented: “I never dreamt I would win this award when I started mentoring. It was purely to help young people, so I’m really honoured and humbled to win this award today. My biggest message to the kids is this: I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth, and I wasn’t academically that gifted. But I worked really hard to get to where I am today, so if I can do it, anybody can!”

Every month we acknowledge a mentor who has really stood out, an accolade Saira was awarded in May 2013, the winners of which are then put forward for the Princess Badiya Mentor of the Year Award. The award recognises those individuals who have shown outstanding commitment to Mosaic’s mentoring programmes, and whose contributions have had a significant impact on Mosaic’s beneficiaries.

New Regional Manager for Mosaic South East Anu Atewologun said of Saira’s win: “Having only recently taken over the role of Regional Manager for the South East, I have been incredibly moved by Saira’s story. She juggles a busy and successful career with being mum to three children and she has given her time and experience so generously to those she has mentored. It really is an amazing achievement to have mentored two teams, for two consecutive years, to the final of Enterprise Challenge and now to win the inaugural Princess Badiya Mentor of the Year Award. Words really can’t express how proud we all are of Saira.”

Mosaic’s National Director Jonathan Freeman added: “We are so honoured that our founder Chairman, HRH Princess Badiya, takes such a special interest in the acknowledgement of our mentor community. Choosing an overall winner for this inaugural award was so difficult: Maz Majid has such passion for Mosaic and was recently recognised at the M&S Local Community Champion for 2013 Awards. Maz has now recruited over 100 mentors from M&S for this year’s Apax-Mosaic Enterprise Challenge.

Ansar Ali is so committed to his role as a mentor that he regularly changes his work meeting times to attend his sessions and is always one step ahead with his preparations. But there can be only one winner – and we are thrilled for Saira. Congratulations from all of us at Mosaic!”

The Award was restricted to those individuals supporting one or more of Mosaic’s programmes as a mentor. Candidates for the Award were selected from those recognised through the Mosaic Hero of the Month scheme.

The judging panel was chaired by HRH Princess Badiya and involved Khawar Mann (Mosaic Chairman), Yasmin Waljee OBE (Mosaic Vice-Chairman), Nabila Sadiq (Mosaic Board member), Asif Sadiq (former Mosaic Mentor of the Year) and Jonathan Freeman (National Director, Mosaic).

The Mentor of the Year Award was hosted by Vivek Singh, proprietor of the famous Cinnamon Club in London on Sunday 20th October 2013.

A special thank you is extended to the evening’s sponsor, Gibbs S3.

Find out more about becoming a Mosaic mentor

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Inaugural Princess Badiya Mentor of the Year Award