About Us

About Us

Supporting change in young people with adverse childhood experiences.

Our story

We're Upside Youth Mentoring (formerly Brothers In Arms) and we exist to support change in Aotearoa's young people with adverse childhood experiences across Tāmaki Makaurau and beyond. We want to help them feel a little brighter and more loved than they did yesterday.

Our dream is to change the future of our nation. We've been matching young people with mentors since 2006 and with over 1,000 matches and 7,000 hours of mentoring a year, we’ve seen time and time again the life-changing effects of this connection.

90%

success rate in 2019 (24% higher than international standard)

The young people we work with

We work with young people aged 9-13 years old who have been referred to us from schools, (via principals, counsellors, and Learning Support Coordinators) who believe a positive role model is what this young person needs to help navigate their current challenges. 

Upside works across Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), and supports young people in other areas through Partner organisations doing the mahi in their community.

100%

with Adverse Childhood Experiences

Our mentors

Our volunteer mentors hail from a hugely diverse range of ages, cultures and backgrounds. From CEOs to students, to parachuters and retirees. If you've got two hours a week to spare for a year to change a young person's life, we want to hear from you.

Become a mentor

6000 hours

of volunteer mentoring in 2020

The Team

3

Daryl Powell

Partnerships Manager

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Kylie Kent

Fundraising Manager (Interim)

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Donald Fawkner

Programme Manager

10

Farrely Falwasser

Mentoring Coordinator

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Jaelyn Reti

Mentoring Coordinator

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Holly Guthrie

Mentoring Support Coordinator (Events & Admin)

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Olive

Communications Coordinator

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Rowan Schnauer

Grants Fundraiser

4

Rachel Clarke

Fundraising Manager - ON MATERNITY LEAVE

Our partners

We're stoked to be partnering with other organisations doing amazing mahi to reach young people outside of Auckland. We're already working with awesome organisations such as Springboard in Rodney, Tipu Skills for Life in Tauranga and Coast Mentoring in Whangaparaoa, delivering Upside's mentoring programme to their local communities.

If you are a registered charity and are interested in learning more about running the Upside mentoring programme, we'd love to chat more about being there for young people together. Click here to learn more about becoming an Upside Partner

 

Annual Report 2022

Check out the awesome mahi that's been made possible by so many wonderful people, organisations, and corporates, who chose to make positive a difference for young people. View Annual Report 2023 here.