More on Mentoring

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In my last blog I wrote about some of the aspects of my July trip to Kenya and Rwanda. I included some comments about mentoring. Then last week I presented a workshop titled “Peer Mentoring for Students and Teachers” at the Gaston County Teaching and Learning Conference.

Mentoring is one of the most powerful yet underrated and underutilized personal development tools. We could all become stronger and more proficient in what we do if we participated more in mentoring relationships. And mentoring can help us develop in many different spheres of our lives – our vocations, volunteer and community work, church work, and even hobbies.

Simply put, mentoring is a pair of individuals working together in order to achieve specific objectives for skills growth and development. The pair consists of an individual who as skill, knowledge and experience (the mentor) that the other individual (mentee or protégé) has a need to acquire. And the mentor also benefits from the relationship in that he or she is growing their leadership and coaching skills.

Traditional and Peer Mentoring: The three young men in the back are community volunteers in Gisenyi, Rwanda who have set up an informal weekend mentoring program with 14 and 15-year-old street orphans to encourage them to stay in school to build a better life. The boy on the left is 15-years-old and often watches out for, mentors and takes care of some of the 14-year-olds.

And there are various types of mentoring relationships:
• Traditional – two people of different rank or status where the senior mentors the junior – such as teacher to student or sales manager with a new salesperson.
• Peer – where two people of the same rank or status form a mutual mentoring relationship – such as two teachers or two employees in the same job
• Reverse mentoring – a new concept where the traditionally junior member of the relationship actually mentors a senior person in an area of life knowledge – such as a student who grew up in a ghetto mentoring a white teacher who has always lived in a suburban middle class environment.

These mentoring relationships can range from structured and scheduled to informal where the mentee occasionally contacts the mentor periodically when he or she needs assistance. And finally, one benefits most by having multiple mentoring relationships addressing various aspects of life and vocational growth at the same time. This is termed as having a “constellation of mentors.”

Feel free to email me at [email protected] if you want me to send you a copy of my mentoring powerpoint presentation.

Progress in Kenya – a Connection to Mentoring

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It has been well over a month since my last blog entry. Much of the reason is that I was in East Africa for over 3 weeks, taking a little vacation and also doing some volunteer networking and work with Metropolitan Community Churches, Other Sheep and Global Roots.

Construction has now started on the Jipe Moyo campsite and Matangini / Kimer Vocational School

With Global Roots, I returned to Mtito Andei, Kenya for the first time since providing the seed funding to start the Matangini / Kimer Vocation School and the Jipe Moyo campsite. (Link here). I am pleased to report that construction has started!

After returning to Mtito Andei, I was asked to go on a three-day survey trip for Global Roots into the Rift Valley area of Kenya, northwest of Nairobi , to assess opportunities for new projects. I met and was hosted by three bright young emerging leaders who head three non-profit groups in the Rift Valley area. These young leaders are attempting to engaged the younger generation of Kenyans in the political process and economic development, with the goal of leading Kenya into a more fair, open and prosperous society that can benefit all people of the country. These three Kenyan groups are:
• Smart Citizens
• Youth Peace Alliance
• Imagine Kenya

Meeting with Kenyan leaders and activists in the Rift Valley city of Eldoret

In addition, I also met with some established senior government leaders who seek to steer Kenya in a good direction. I then saw the connection to the need for mentoring, which is one of the topics I will be speaking on a conference in August. (Gaston Teaching and Learning Conference.) Ways in which mentoring can help with the capacity building of future Kenyan leadership can include:
• The emerging leaders I met with mentoring the burgeoning young adult population of Kenya
• The current established Kenyan leaders with high integrity mentoring the emerging leaders
• Leadership development and economic development expertise from other countries in the world mentoring the willing and enthusiastic future leaders of Kenya.

I left Kenya with a positive hope of progress that can be made under the leadership of these new emerging leaders who want to build strong competencies coupled with high integrity and a real desire for the best future for the entire country. I look forward to staying involved in this development.