The inspirational football club coach who set Mentivity founder on path to success

Sayce Holmes-Lewis is founder and CEO of Mentivity, an award-winning mentoring organisation that offers support for young people and schools through 1:1 mentoring and group conversation-based learning. Mentivity has worked with more than 75 schools and colleges and impacted the lives of 25,000 children.

Abdullah Ben Kmayal grew up on the Glebe Estate in Peckham, south-east London, and was someone who realised that many young people were going down the wrong path. He was my first football coach, mentor and boss and gave me my first paid role aged 16.

He had set up a football club, Bethwin FC in Camberwell, to get young people off the streets. He ran two clubs over 25 years and ended up employing most of the people who played for the club.

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I didn’t know about the workplace and the value of punctuality aged 16. Doubling up as both a coach and a boss was also difficult for Abs. But he managed it well and he put me onto the path of discipline and gave me support at the same time.

He had high standards for us all. If I turned up late for football he took the view that it was a transferable trait that could spill into my personal life. There was no escape and it was relentless in a good way.

He gave tough love and lots of nurturing advice but was a prominent role model and I could see that he was trying to model the same behaviour in his life and through his work. He was also undertaking a journey through his professional career for who he needed to be as well as for us. I really respected and understood that.

I had a real lack of confidence at the time he started to employ me. When I told people I was from the Aylesbury Estate, and they then realised it was close to Peckham, they would almost give me a look of disdain. It was normal but it only motivated me to change the perception of people from there. And so it was important for me to communicate with young people, how I coached and mentored them and how to socially engage with their wider community.

At Bethwin, a well known charity came on board. This was important for Abdullah and his growth as a community leader as he had to become more professional with the introduction of appraisals and business plans which he then transferred onto us at Bethwin.

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With minimal resources, Abs had innovative ways to obtain funding and was a huge advocate for community investment, Abs tasked parents and the wider community to pay regular fees to support this work. Abs had to change the mindset of hundreds of parents and young people of how important investment was so that others could invest in us. At its height, Bethwin had in excess of 20 teams with 1,000 young people playing football every week.

Abs was simply the complete package and in 2004 was announced as a BBC Sports Personality of The Year's Unsung Hero. I remember watching the presentation live on the BBC. For someone from my area to get an accolade like that for the work he was doing, was unheard of.

I later became a professional coach at Southwark Council aged 25 and qualified for seven different sports which Abs had initially put me on the journey for. I played professionally in the Republic of Ireland and Romania for a few years and when those contracts ended, Abs made sure there was a job for me.

After twice being made redundant it gave me the inspiration to launch Mentivity in 2016.

I didn’t want to become a charity and decided to become a limited company, signing contracts with schools to deliver our services on site and that was the best outcome for us in terms of becoming efficient with less overheads. It was crucial for me to showcase self-determination through this new venture.

Our reputation led to success but after two years we looked at funding, before COVID led to our biggest challenge. That’s when the corporate sector came into play. It forced me to look at different ways to fund Mentivity and also how we presented ourselves to the partners we had.

We spoke to corporate partners, gave them an emotional attachment and Goldman Sachs (GS) became our biggest funder when we negotiated a £675,000 contract over three years. We now have a partnership with Spotify (SPOT) and the London Assembly and the aim is to impact at least 10,000 people with long-term mentoring over the next three years.

This year our objective is to raise £1m to help Mentivity ‘Reclaim the Block’, providing youth services and mentoring at Mentivity House for young people on the Aylesbury Estate.

It seems a world away from when I was 14 and unfortunately assaulted by a Met Police officer while I was going home from school. The officer wasn't charged and I was summoned to court to answer assault charges at the age of 14 despite being the victim. Since then I have experienced over 40 stops and searches by the Met Police, despite never committing a crime or being known to police.

It took a long time to find a true resolution to this problem I have faced since the age of 14 but I now work with the Mayor of London and sit on the London Police Board to showcase solutions which are very important for me and my community.

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Being a community leader means I represent people’s voices that are not normally heard. Without Abs and the support I had, I would not be doing any of this.

After my assault in the mid 1990s, I had become disillusioned with my life's experiences and it was a friend who I said I should join his football team. It was a critical moment in my life. I was frustrated, angry and deeply hurt but I needed to focus my energy on my passion, which was football.

It allowed me to experience success not just on the field but also off of the field. Success can be hard to come by in the areas that I grew up in. I won my first trophy with Abs in my first year aged 15 and I haven’t looked back since.

Abs is still in my life today nearly 30 years later. He is always on hand and it’s almost like reverse mentoring where I can now give him advice about his life and career. It is a beautiful relationship.

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