Richard Johnston, 18, is just back from a week’s training in New York.

He is off again next month. This time for a workshop in Rochester, where he will share everything he learnt with more than 100 teenage Americans working to provide other young people with the tools they need to get to college or find a job.

It is part of PeerForward, a US-based initiative that Richard was nominated for in 2021 while a student at CedarBridge Academy.

He thinks the work he did with Mirrors, the local youth programme, is what got him noticed.

“I was always volunteering, I was always thinking outside the box. Whenever they needed help I was there. I was trustworthy and so they trusted me with the role, with being part of PeerForward,” Richard said.

The description he received – that it was brand new and would be a “great experience” – was enough to convince him to try it out.

“I was like, sure. I don't have anything else in my plans, I get extracurricular hours. Sure. Why not?”

As its name suggests, the non-profit organisation uses “the power of positive peer influence” to improve “the lives of low-income youth by connecting them to college and career”.

In the US, its overarching message led to a marked improvement in students’ grades, Richard said.

“As soon as you tell someone ‘yes they can’, they will go and they will show off their skills,” he said. “And PeerForward has shown proof that that works every single time.”

In November of 2021, Richard participated in a four-day workshop where he learnt “just how hard it was to get into college”.

The information covered the university application process and laid out the cost of tuition as well as how to choose appropriate scholarships and apply for them.

He said: “They taught us what you need in order to go to the US, Canada or the UK so that you can survive your first term. I’m not talking about the whole year, I’m talking about just the first term.”

The peer leaders were then assigned different roles and tasked with sharing everything they learnt with their schoolmates.

As “outreach manager”, it was Richard’s job to “go out on the field when we had our campaigns”.

“[I had to] make sure people understood,” he said. “It's so much better for a 17-year-old to talk to another 17-year-old about college because they can have a sincere conversation. If [they were paired] with someone that's 34 years old, someone who has already been through everything, that’s boring. But another 17-year-old is going to go through the same roller coaster.

“I was friends with everyone; I was [someone] that everyone knew. I had respect for everyone and some people looked up to me and [considered me] a role model.”

Richard is grateful for the guidance that CedarBridge provided through counsellors Angelita Outerbridge and Clindel Lowe.

“They’re the ones who helped us get ready for our campaigns. But once all that happened, they let us go because it's our job as peer leaders to target our peers, to help them go to college either here in Bermuda, or in Canada or the US or the UK; to get scholarships for schools that they want to go to. And if they don’t want to go to school, to get them to apply on the Bermuda Job Board – get their resume out there, get them internships.

“We literally help any student, not just students in low areas, but any student that has a will to go forward and not just sit down and do nothing. Peer leaders use their power to go to their peers and help them succeed – to go college, apply for scholarships and go into the workforce.”

On his graduation from CedarBridge last year Richard received a call from Sandra Dill, the programme manager for the Mirrors programme and Bermuda’s PeerForward coordinator, asking if he would like to take the next step forward and become an “alumni”.

“I said sure because I love the programme and I love helping people,” he said.

With Ms Dill’s help, Richard is now working as an intern with the Department of Immigration and in September is off to the University of Nottingham in England to pursue a law degree.

In the meantime, he is looking forward to the workshop at Nazareth College in Rochester where, in his role as a “peer support specialist”, he will coach about 120 peer leaders.

“They said why don’t you take the next step? And of course I would not miss out on this opportunity,” Richard said.

The training he underwent this month has put him in a good spot for the upcoming workshop and given him the necessary skills to continue as a peer leader once he moves to Britain.

“The information they gave me – top of the chart. They really take this college stuff very seriously, helping out a young Black man to go out there and make history. It’s all about success and they take pride in their work, which is amazing and I love it and I want to continue doing it, never stop being part of it.”

• For more information on PeerForward visit www.peerforward.org/