Caine is a brilliant young lad who’s recently earnt himself a place at university doing his dream course!
Described as “an inspiration” by his care worker who knew Caine to have volunteered weekly at his local Christian centre, he is a design whizz and is currently on a games design course at Staffordshire University. As you can imagine these courses demand some pretty high-spec hardware, and despite him taking the initiative and successfully applying for a zero hours contract at a fast food restaurant – there is no way he would have been able to afford it himself as someone who is in Manchester’s Leaving Care Service. We were delighted to award him the funds needed from our Manchester’s Rising Stars Fund to pay back his incredibly generous foster parents who understood that without immediate support from them in purchasing a specialist laptop, Caine would not have been able to realise his full potential.
If we’re honest none of our words can match up to testimony from Caine himself, and we’re incredibly lucky to have a piece of writing that he did for Manchester City Council’s care leaver newsletter, in which he details how grateful he is to his foster family and all the hard work he undertook to gain the place at university he so deserved.
My Journey to University
“I first met my foster carers almost 8 years ago and have been through Primary school, High school, College and now University with their support. When I first went to High school I was kind of surprised how hard and challenging it was. Now I realise it was because I had never really had a full week’s attendance at school until I was with my foster carers.
Anyway I was doing rather well in my studies for high school and eventually when I reached year 11 I achieved 7 GCSE’s and I have got to be honest, my maths and science were very easy but my English and my other choices were very difficult. I had to resist my English language and it was a great feeling when I eventually passed it ! I have always been interested in gaming and animations so I decided this is what I wanted to do in the future.
I was accepted onto the course I wanted, which was Animation and Game design, at Clarendon College in September 2018. Then my college life began and boy was that something! I made great friends, had amazing lecturers and a brilliant time altogether! My first year I got to learn a ton of software and meet a great bunch of people. My second year was a lot harder but I was also enjoying the amount of practical work I was given as I was able to hone in on my skills and therefore improve at creating better models and produce better coding as well.
As I approached the end of college I then had to think about my next steps. The gaming industry is very popular and competitive and the next obvious step was University which would hopefully open up opportunities as well as further my knowledge, skills and experience in this field. I was really happy I got the grades I needed to get into university and enrolled at Staffordshire University in September 2020 on the ‘Computer Game Design’ course.
Due to Covid 19 my lessons are all virtual at the moment which actually I prefer. I have made new friends already online who have the same interests as me. I have met all my lecturers who seem really supportive. I have been given some tasks to do which I will look forward to doing! So for any other foster children out there I didn’t have the best start to my education but with hard work and my foster carers support and encouragement I achieved 100% attendance at school, college, GCSE’s, BTEC and hopefully a degree in the next few years.
Try hard, never give up and you will be amazed at what you can achieve!”
What an incredible young man, and undoubtedly a Rising Star. We’re very proud to support him on his journey, and hope to give you updates as soon as we get them!