Going into a career straight after finishing education can be daunting but one woman is trying to help bridge the gap between college learning and the world of hairdressing.

Sarah Ayonmike has been helping young people grow necessary skills and confidence in their haircutting ability.

The hair stylist from Chatham has been teaching young people through her salon Code Red hair and beauty as she believed the courses offered to budding hairdressers do not fully prepare them to work in the industry.

She said: "Because the education system, in my mind, isn’t quite where it should be and its not a one size fits all some people come to me saying college and school doesn’t work for them.

"I can provide those people with lots of different skills in a way hopefully more interesting yet still a quiet environment.

"I offer a longer term so they can come, and it does get easier over time.

"We try to get in as many models as we can and keep going over everything, so they are fully confident with what they’re doing so it’s giving them more time to develop.

"I just want to show that the future can be bright for them.

"When they feel written off or they're just stuck I want to be able to open their minds and show them there are opportunities in places when perhaps they may not have looked before."

One such student is 17-year-old Amy Cooper-Partridge.

She came to Sarah after passing her level 2 course in hairdressing but when she went into a salon she felt her training was lacklustre.

She said: "You go into a salon and they expect you to know how to do everything and I just felt like I knew nothing.

"I came to Sarah and even in a week I learnt more here than in college.

"I am just thankful to her to get me where I am at now."

Some of Amy's former classmates have even said how they would have followed a similar path if they knew it was there.

She continued: "Some of my friends in college are staying on to do their level 3 but are saying they want to leave as they don't feel like they know much.

'I want to be able to open their minds and show them there are opportunities in places...'

"I am lucky that I have Sarah and there needs to be more people like her otherwise things like hairdressing will go."

Sarah and Amy have set up a GoFundMe page for the salon to help boost the funds to expand and help train more young people in the future.

Sarah said: "I obviously have costs to be able to train from here.

"I have to pay for the coursework, I need two more styling stations to accommodate more people, a few mirrors, chairs, scissors and combs so they can walk in with nothing and have everything they need to get going.

"Younger people aren’t in a position to be paying out thousands of pounds for courses so if I can fund as much of that as I can or provide my time for free then it’s going to be beneficial to them.

"The GoFundMe is really so I can reach more young people without having to pass the courses costs onto them."