Free tutoring
Structured academic support in small cohorts that builds skills, confidence and study habits.
Thames Gateway EdEquity
Barking, Dagenham, Havering & Thurrock
Thames Gateway EdEquity
Free tutoring, mentoring, careers guidance and digital skills support for disadvantaged young people aged 11 to 17, delivered by trained, DBS-checked volunteers.
Every year, young people across Thurrock, Havering and Barking and Dagenham fall further behind at school, not because they lack potential, but because they lack access: to tutoring, to mentors, to devices, and to adults who believe in them. Thames Gateway EdEquity CIC exists to close that gap.
We are a volunteer-led Community Interest Company delivering free tutoring, mentoring, careers guidance and digital skills support to young people aged 11 to 17. Our programmes run in community venues including RCCG The Fountain in Barking, and are built on a place-based, evidence-driven model: small cohorts, structured referral through community and church networks rather than school gatekeeping, and outcome tracking from day one.
Every session is delivered by trained, DBS-checked volunteers who understand the pressures these young people face: falling behind at school, low confidence, and limited access to technology.
Structured academic support in small cohorts that builds skills, confidence and study habits.
Trusted relationships that support wellbeing, aspiration and practical next steps.
Exposure to pathways, role models and choices beyond the classroom.
Skills coaching, plus plans to provide fully licensed refurbished devices where funding allows.
We’re a new organisation, and we’re building the evidence in from day one rather than adding it later. We’ve listened to young people and families, developed a consistent needs scorecard, and defined how we’ll measure change before the first full programme cycle.
We track wellbeing and readiness with recognised tools like WEMWBS and SDQ, and a structured readiness self-assessment for our academic confidence programmes, so funders and families can see real change, not just activity, as soon as we have it to show.
See Our Impact Approach
Young people and families across Thurrock, Havering and Barking and Dagenham, referred through parents, community networks, HAF contacts and local partners. A school referral is not required, and every referral goes through the same eligibility and needs scorecard.
Read referral FAQsWe are not a large, faceless charity. We are led by people from these communities: a founder with over ten years of direct mentoring experience, a co-director who spent her career as a teacher watching the attainment gap widen for pupils who needed the most support, and a co-director who is a practising mental health professional.
Meet our directorsIndependent bodies we’ve chosen to be accountable to, on top of our own governance.
On our digital inclusion plans
We’re developing plans for a digital inclusion programme, providing refurbished, fully licensed Chromebooks to young people without home access to technology, alongside our education and mentoring work. We’re already a member of the National Digital Inclusion Network, the route to accessing Good Things Foundation’s National Device Bank, so the groundwork for this is real even though device funding itself isn’t confirmed yet. We’ll announce timing here once it is.
If you want to see the detail behind what we do — our outcomes measurement approach, our governance, our financials — our Funder Information Pack has everything you need, including what we don’t have evidence for yet.
Help fund tutoring materials, digital skills, devices and mentoring places for young people who would otherwise go without. Every pound goes to delivery.
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