Experience
160 VIRGIN AUSTRALIA DECEMBER 2017
FROM TOP
AIME CEO
and founder
Jack Manning
Bancrot; with
volunteers from
Uganda and
South Atica;
a mentoring
session with
Virgin Australia.Tell us about AIME.
AIME builds mentoring bridges between university students
and the most disadvantaged high school kids. We’ve been doing
this in Australia for 13 years, working with Indigenous kids.
The impact of our work has seen the education gap close for
the youth going through our program. It has been so successful
that the model is now set to be picked up in Uganda, South
Africa and Canada.What impact has AIME had?
Since we started, we’ve helped 15,000 Indigenous kids out of
situations of education inequality. There are also now 5000
university students volunteering, which equates to the largest
volunteer movement of university students in Australian
history. It has become an independently proven model to end
inequality — a simple, cheap and scalable bridge between
university and high school.How did it start?
I got sick of the complaining and wanted to do something
practical. The intent was simple — use mentoring to help kids
who have so much value and potential. The world is theirs for
the taking, with the right education and self pride the keys. In
2005, we started with just one school, 25 kids and 25 mentors.Tell us about some of the ambassadors you work with.
We’ve had some great humans come on as global ambassadors,
sharing their wisdom through AIME TV, which features mentors
speaking the truth. Some of our global friends include Taika
Waititi, Danielle Cormack and Rose McIver from New Zealand;
Australian actor Yael Stone; and a bunch of the otherOrange is
the New Blackactors. We also have Patrick J Adams fromSuits,
Aussie cricketers including Marcus Stoinis, and in South Africa,
Swati Mandela and the Mandela family have thrown their name
behind AIME. They believe in AIME, but most importantly they
believe in the power of mentoring to help us build more equal
societies. Something we can all do.What can we learn from the AIME story?
The one thing we can all change, and it’s free, is mindset. We
can be better as Australians by backing those who reach forOver the last 13 years, AIME has become one
of Australia’s most important programs for
Aboriginal youth — and it’s now going global.
Long-term supporter Virgin Australia sat down
to chat with the organisation’s founder and chief
executive oficer, Jack Manning Bancrot.PERFECT AIME
greatness. We can challenge ourselves to imagine Indigenous
people as destined to succeed. We can carve out new narratives
that become reality if we say them out loud enough. Stories
come to life — we’ve seen that with AIME.
Purchase Manning Bancroft’s book The Mentor on
aimementoring.com. All proceeds go back to AIME. There are many
other ways to get involved, listed on the site. Or, grab some AIME
Apparel for Christmas and show your kids AIME TV. WORDSSARAH NORRIS