“There’s no word to describe how I felt other than proud” ~ Krithicck Sivakumaar

Krithicck Sivakumaar is a year 13 student currently completing A-level maths, further maths, chemistry and biology. He is working towards studying medicine at university next year. Krithicck enjoys playing badminton, a sport that plays a significant role in his life as he often completes in national competitions. When he’s not playing badminton or studying you can often find him playing the piano, an activity he finds solace in.

“I didn’t initially know that I wanted to study medicine. It was only around year 11 when I kind of thought this might be a career that I’d want to look into. I went out and got some work experience before the pandemic and I enjoyed seeing doctors diagnosing and piecing different bits of scientific information together to benefit a patient. It appealed to me.”

Like many young people, Krithicck found himself scrolling endlessly through volunteering sites during the lockdown period. It’s how he came to find Success4All’s tutor-befriender volunteering opportunity.

“We were in lockdown at the time and I was searching through a website that shows you different volunteering organisations. I searched through there and filtered through what kind of things I wanted to do, and so I filtered in mentoring and then Success4All appeared. I sent an email and applied for the role.

“It appealed to me because I thought it would be a nice way to not only develop my own skills of tutoring, communication, planning and skills like that but also to help out students who might be struggling with their school work.”

As a positive result of his early experience, nearly 12 months on and Krithicck is still very much heavily involved with our tutor-befriender scheme.

“My experience has been really good and I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve completed approximately 14 sessions with the same tutee. We’ve kind of built a long and pleasant term relationship. I supported him, tutee, with English, as he was a relatively new arrival to the country and so I was helping him out with English language and English literature.

“Over time, I saw his confidence grow, especially his language skills as he developed a more complex vocabulary toolbox. Near the end of the tutoring, we went on to study Shakespeare, which I was quite proud of. To go from relatively basic English to that sort of level was nice to see. There’s no word to describe how I felt other than proud, to be honest.”

Considering it was the first time Krithicck had tutored, the experience provided him with an opportunity to not only strengthen his skills but also develop new ones too.

“The main skill I’ve developed from the experience was explaining more complex topics in a simpler way that could be understood. It was quite a difficult skill to develop because you kind of has to simplify it down so much but over time build up the complexity, which sounds confusing but equally, I thought it helped me out.”

Volunteering with Success4All has meant that Krithicck has not only engaged, empowered and equipped his tutee but he’s also left with a toolbox of skills that he can apply in his career as a medic.

“I recommend volunteering. Not only is it something that you can be proud of because you get to help other people out, but it can also help you out as well. The coordinators we good for me. They were supportive and f you had any questions you could just ask them about them. They’d always cheer for you and give you support when you needed it.”

 

Thank you to the players of the Postcode Lottery for providing us with a grant to recruit and train 100 BAME volunteers into the role of a peer tutor-befriender.