Break Cycles → Build Futures

Coaching, mentoring and storytelling for Black and interracial boys and men, their families and communities: one individual, one family, one community at a time.

Shine a Light|Move with Purpose|Amplify Voices

This November

Movember: the month that inspired MoveMEN

Every November, Movember brings men’s health into the open. It also inspired MoveMEN: our programme for Black and interracial men aged 18 and over to move outside their own box, grow across health, education, justice and wealth, and create change for the next man. This Movember, we’re starting that conversation in Barnet and beyond.

MoveMEN artwork: a man's silhouette in front of a striped red circle

Who we are

Who and what is AQ Coaching

AQ carries a dual meaning. It is our founder’s name, Abdul Qadir, meaning servant of the All-Powerful: Allah’s servant. It is also an Authentic Quest: the journey each of us takes to find who we truly are. Since 2020 we have offered coaching, mentoring and storytelling rooted in lived experience.

We work with Black and interracial boys and men, their families and communities, across four pillars: Health, Education, Justice and Wealth.

Two organisations share one mission. AQ Community Coaching CIC runs free community programmes: Boys2Men, MoveMEN and Community Workshops. AQ Life Coaching Ltd offers coaching, mentoring and consultancy for individuals and organisations.

Every journey moves through Embrace, Embark, Emerge and Elevate, guided by our ABCD approach and four intelligences: intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergenerational and intercultural.

Our Community Hub brings it together, with stories, free tools, and clubs and circles, so change continues one individual, one family, one community and one organisation at a time.

About AQ →

Two balls on one curving path: one brand, two entities

The circle of life

Living from the inside out

There’s a piece of you that knows you are excellent to the core. We call it your circle of life: the moon, the wheel that keeps turning, the centre that is you.

Our intention is to create a community hub that elevates Black and interracial boys and men to create the very life they envision for themselves, their families, their communities and the world at large, so they can be the catalyst for change: for tomorrow, today.

Where we work

Health · Education · Justice · Wealth

These are the four systems that shape the lives of Black and interracial boys and men. Each one shows real inequality, and each is where we work to break the cycle. Belonging runs through all four: a safe, culturally relevant space to be seen, heard and supported.

Health

Breaking barriers and the silence around mental health.

3.5× Black people are more than three and a half times as likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act as White people.NHS England, 2023/24

Culturally aware coaching and mentoring, alongside families, before crisis point.

Education

Reversing the pipeline from school exclusion to prison.

2.2× Mixed White and Black Caribbean pupils are permanently excluded at about 2.2 times the overall rate.Department for Education, 2022/23

Mentoring in schools, with a support plan agreed with home and school.

Justice

Fair access to support, in and out of the system.

12% of people in prison are Black, compared with 4% of the population of England and Wales.Ministry of Justice, 2025; Census 2021

Mentoring during and after custody, family reconnection, and a route into MoveMEN.

Wealth

Financial confidence for the next generation.

£34,000 median wealth of Black African households, against £314,000 for White British households.Office for National Statistics

Money management, skills, work and enterprise, so families can build security.

Our focus →

Work with us

Refer someone to a programme, volunteer, partner with us, or share your story on Authentic Conversations, our monthly storytelling panel on YouTube (the AQ Community Channel).

Life goes up……and down