At school, Tyresse was surrounded by negative influences and was looking for a way to break out. He wanted more for his future, so when he saw someone a few years older than him doing an apprenticeship, it seemed like the perfect path – “she was always going on holiday – I wanted that lifestyle too!”

“When I was in college, I didn’t like the concept of going to uni”, he remembers. “People struggle to find jobs after and go into debt. I didn’t want to put myself through that”. When a friend referred him to LTSB, he knew he had to apply.

“I was also confident because my friend got an actual apprenticeship with LTSB”, he recalls, “so I thought I’d give it a go”.

At the start of the bootcamp, Tyresse was very quiet, and lacked the confidence to participate as much as he wanted.

“I started a shy and introverted person with small expectation of what to come from the programme. It’s hard for me to open up and trust someone I’ve never met before, but as time went on, I decided to just go for it and watched myself almost metamorphose into a confident, outspoken and friendly person.”

Through LTSB, he got an interview for an apprenticeship at Post Office and was successful in landing the role!

He now reflects on what he believes is possible for other young people like him. “My mindset before was that a young black person couldn’t work in big-name brands – so it made me feel like anything is actually possible. People should not have a limit on that!”