Opening Doors: Aitenga Brings Career Guidance to Cambridge Secondary School

There is a difference between hearing the word “career” and truly understanding what it means for your future. For many of the 200 students at Cambridge Secondary School, most of whom come from less advantaged backgrounds, that difference had never been bridged. Until now.

Aitenga held a Career Path Workshop at Cambridge Secondary School, stepping into a space where professional guidance is rare and the stakes are high. For many of these students, this was their first real opportunity to sit across from professionals, ask questions, and begin to imagine a future shaped by informed choices rather than circumstance.

The impact of the day was felt on both sides of the room. One Aitenga team member, who rarely gets the opportunity to interact directly with students during workshops, found herself stepping well outside her comfort zone , and discovering something unexpected.“I was so nervous to talk to the students because I rarely get the opportunity to interact with them during these workshops. However, this opportunity enabled me to get out of my comfort zone. I found that I had many stories to share from my own career journey.”

That is precisely the point. Aitenga does not show up to deliver information that can be found on the first page of a Google search. We show up to forge something deeper , real guidance, access to scholarship resources, and honest conversations about life, choices, and what the road ahead can look like when you have the right people in your corner. We share our own stories because we know that sometimes, all it takes is one sentence from the right person at the right moment to change the direction of a young person’s life. For many of the students at Cambridge Secondary School, a career had always felt like something decided by someone else , a distant concept handed down by parents without much room for personal agency or aspiration. What this workshop offered was something different: the realisation that access to good information is itself a form of power, and that the decisions they make today about their education can shape everything that follows.

A heartfelt thank you goes to the dedicated Aitenga team who prepared handouts, gathered resources, and conducted research to ensure the content was as useful and relevant as possible for these students. Thank you to the headteacher for recognising the value of this kind of engagement and for opening the school’s doors to us – that decision alone made a real difference. And a special thank you to CHiQ for their unwavering support in making programmes like this one possible. Your partnership continues to extend our reach and deepen our impact. At Aitenga, we believe that no child should have to navigate the future without guidance. One workshop at a time, one story at a time, we are changing that.