Tag Archive | youth

Becoming A Mentor: Do You Need Experience?

Jan4

Start where you are

I remember when I was in Campus and used to discuss with my friends about life after graduation. We would talk about things like, would we really get jobs? There was a lot of negative information about the job market which made us a little worried. How long would it take to get a job? The most worrying fact we were facing, though, was that the good jobs required experience, and who was willing to give us a chance to get that experience? It seemed to us as though the employment world was skewed against fresh graduates – if we need experience to get employed, who was going to give it to us?

The answer to that pertinent question presented itself to me at some point during my final year. I got an opportunity to volunteer at the United Nations Environmental Program offices as a Sociology student. It was a short stint, barely a month, but it gave me a chance to get a little bit of practice working in a busy office. So I got some experience.

What did this teach me? There is always opportunity to get experience all around us. Life offers little chances here and there for us to get into our area of interest if only we would look. Napoleon Bonaparte said, “Ability is nothing without opportunity,” therefore let the opportunity to mentor become the opportunity to sharpen your abilities in this area. Look around you, who needs your help and in what area? It may be a younger person or even someone older than you but has less experience in that field. Find out what you can do to help.

Mentoring is essentially a relationship; and there is no-one who has a diploma or degree in relationships. We all learn as we go along. Sometimes this is a better way of learning how to do things – learning on the job. It gives you better handle on the practical aspects and the real issues involved.

Start where you are. Start with what you know now, the rest will be uncovered as you proceed. Later on, you will be able to say that you have some experience in mentoring others.

Freely you have received, freely give

I learnt about mentoring well past college – actually when working. However, there were people in my life’s journey that I could point to as having influenced my life significantly so that I can say I have learnt a lot from them. They may or may not have been aware of their influence, and some of them were not close to me but played their role from afar. They gave me their time, wisdom, resources and help in different ways, to make me what I am today. There was no formal arrangement to do that; they were just great givers who wanted to see me do well in life. If they were to tell their own stories they would probably also give the same testimony, that there were people who helped them along in life.

What am I saying? If you have gotten to the place where you are with the help of others, you can extend the same grace to another who needs your help. Freely you have received, freely give. Don’t worry about whether anyone notices or not, or whether you will be rewarded. In this life, true givers are the ones who always remain on top.

Always be on the lookout for an opportunity to mentor someone. It may be for a short while like helping a student get through their last year of college successfully, or it could last longer like helping a young entrepreneur start and establish their business.

So becoming a mentor does not always require experience. You just need to be willing and available.

Mentoring Younger Women

Jun21

I’ve thought of this many times before – how I’d love to teach younger women some of the things I have learnt while growing up. All of the mistakes I’ve made so far have been very painful; some I’d rather not acknowledge to anyone apart from God. However, I have learnt that my pain, when looked at through the eyes of wisdom, can easily be the stepping stone to someone else’s gain. In the ways in which I see my pain as gain, I see opportunities to edify another woman who needs to know that she doesn’t have to make all the mistakes I made. In fact, if I could really have my way, she wouldn’t make any mistakes at all. She would be perfect.

However, life does not always work that way. We do make mistakes often – some grievous, others less disastrous, but with consequences nonetheless. The hope we have is that we can influence a new generation by preparing them for later life. This will involve opening up our lives to let another woman look inside and learn what they need to learn.

Mentoring younger women needs to be a part of our Kenyan culture once again. My mother’s generation used to do it in their own way, especially when it came to preparation for marriage life. No wonder their marriages seemed to have less volatility. There was a lot of mutual understanding and cooperation between spouses such that even if they had major issues (which I’m sure they did) they dealt with them in a way that didn’t necessarily spell divorce. However, it’s not just marriage life that needs advance preparation. It’s everything else that encompasses a woman’s life from tips on career to choosing friends, dressing, self-expression, leadership, and a host of other things. Come to think of it, a lot of things that I consider to be my repertoire of life skills came from time I spent with other women e.g. older sisters, teachers, friends in college, and of course, my mother. That is not to say that this is the only channel of learning or wisdom for a girl but it is a vital one that will not only prepare her for adult life but will also communicate subtly that she is cared for.

I remember episodes of my childhood when I would spend time with my older sister (I have seven). I’d listen to her opinions of things in life and watch how she handled relationships with people, or how she made decisions about her education and career. She was always serious and practical, but also very compassionate and loved to help needy people. I learnt the value of helping others because she would always come to my rescue whenever I was in trouble, even if I did something very silly. She would often encourage me in my choice of career even when it seemed things wouldn’t work for me. As a result, I learnt to be strong and stable throughout life. I knew that someone always had my back.

If each of us could choose to ‘have someone’s back’ today, there would be a better experience of life, I’m sure of it! Could you do that?

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Women’s Groups can be vehicles for mentoring

Jun15

Women in Kenya are known to be adept at forming groups, organizations, chamas, clubs and all manner of gatherings for one cause or another. In fact, we are so good at it, we have managed to attract the attention of major financial institutions, donors and the government to either finance, support or provide input into our activities. Look at how banks like Equity, Co-operative and K-Rep have introduced and marketed products that specifically target women. These institutions seem to have noticed something significant about what women do when they come together and that we can no longer be ignored. It is said that whatever you do for a woman, whether she is a mother, sister, aunt, grandmother, or daughter, you have done for the whole family. Due to her nurturing and relationship attributes, she is more likely to draw everyone else into the loop of whatever benefit she is enjoying so that they are also blessed.

The reason why I’m saying all this is to remind us of our potential and opportunities as women, and to tie it in with mentoring. Take, for instance, the chamas we are so well-known for. How can we use these forums for mentoring? Is there a way we can devote some of our time to speak to girls in school and college concerning what we have learnt even within the chama? For instance, you could dedicate one of the monthly meetings to visit a school or children’s home and organize a talk, film, games, or other appropriate activity. You could choose to invite an expert in a certain field to guide the talk, e.g. a banker, an entrepreneur, a pastor, a career coach, etc. If it’s not a school or home, you could organize girls in a certain community or estate to gather at the nearest community center or hall and have your activities there. It may require some bit of financing but if you have a welfare kitty within the chama, you could dedicate a certain percentage towards mentoring activities and even have members contribute to it.

You could also invite your daughters and nieces for your meetings every once in a while. This is a great way for them to learn how to manage finances, understand some aspects of group leadership, learn new values and generally enjoy a special outing with mum or auntie.

Another good example is the self-help groups that are common in rural areas. Apart from the main goal of being a vehicle for raising the income of members and the community, it can also be a place where future business women are raised by transferring knowledge and skills to girls. This can be done during school holidays and can be a good strategy for keeping the girls away from idleness that leads to things like promiscuous behavior that causes early pregnancies.

For a long time we have pushed for women in this country to take leadership positions and yes, a lot of ground has been covered. We thank God for the women in parliament as well as the ones heading their own businesses and other organizations. However, I keep asking myself these questions: What about the next generation of women leaders? Have they been trained for leadership? Who is mentoring them to become great women who can be emulated in society?

The groups that we have formed as women are excellent existing structures that we can use to mentor the younger generation. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, let us use the resources that are already at our disposal to do something great. Let us move away from providing just for the present, to providing for the future, which is what makes us stand out as prudent.

Mentoring is not very far from us. It is right at the doorstep of our monthly gatherings. We just need to open our hearts to the idea, start where we are with what we have, and I’m sure we’ll be amazed at how much we can accomplish together.

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Building relationships with the younger generation

Jun11

 

I was once a writer for The Lily Review (Big Sister Corner) and wrote the following article which I believe fits very squarely here. I hope you enjoy it.

Recently, I was participating in a discussion on mentoring the youth and it occurred to those present that reaching out to the younger generation will require that we find a way of getting down to their level of thinking in order to build a rapport and understand them better. The youth today have unique mindsets that reflect their own experiences in the 21st century. They operate from a platform of high technology, faster access to information, a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and greater freedom of expression, among other things. They don’t blindly and quietly accept everything handed down to them but often prod issues and ask tough questions. They are generally a lot more ambitious, adventurous and attracted by hype. They also tend to be impatient in their approach to life, but nonetheless eager to know and explore new territories. The basic question in our minds during that discussion was, how can we build meaningful relationships with the youth in order to influence the direction of their lives?

Too many times we have approached the youth with ‘ready-made answers’ to their problems, effectively imposing what we know on them without due regard to their own perceptions of life. It’s an age-old approach borrowed from previous generations that adults always and automatically know better so the youth have nothing to say or contribute. I have been guilty of this more than once and I have had to learn through experience that the youth need a more sensitive and practical approach that involves incorporating their views into decision making, for example. Offering them opportunities to do things on their own, even if they make serious mistakes, is another better approach that enhances their learning experience.

Being able to mingle easily with the youth is a plus for anyone trying to reach out to them. Imagine holding an outreach program in one of the slums in Nairobi and then they begin to speak sheng and you have absolutely no idea what they are trying to say! One needs to be able to adapt to their environment so as to get closer to them. Sometimes you have to create some form of entertainment, e.g. sports, drama or music to attract them even if the main agenda is to have a serious discussion on life issues like HIV/AIDS or dropping out of school.

This is a generation that is seeking and waiting for answers. They are hungry for someone to look at them twice, share knowledge and experience, listen to their dreams and visions and walk them down the path of wisdom. For the young men, this amounts to a need for fathers while the young women need mothers to nurture and point them in the right direction. I’m not just talking about the normal parenting that mothers and fathers do for their children. It is something that goes way beyond that and fosters a special kind of relationship. Learning experiences are shared freely and knowledge is passed on that enables the youth to overcome obstacles and get closer to their vision in life.

Are you a mentor to the youth? What has been your experience in connecting with them?

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Essential Qualities of a Good Mentor

Feb13

If you want one year of prosperity, grow grain,
If you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees,
If you want one hundred years of prosperity, grow people.
(Chinese proverb)

Mentors do not come easy, especially in this century where people are more glued to electronic devices and software applications than to people and relationships. Time for people seems to be such a rare gem nowadays, even within established relationships like families. Yet, we all need to grow in different faucets of life – relationships, career, character, etc.

However, there are some areas of life for which we surely need someone more experienced or knowledgeable to guide us safely to a desired destination. For that reason, mentorship will always be a subject worthy of our attention.

Six qualities I have found to be very valuable for mentoring are:

  • Honesty
  • Reliability
  • Availability
  • Humility
  • Ability (specific to the area of training)
  • Commitment

This list is by no means exhaustive; it only points out the most important qualities that should apply to any kind of mentor in any field. Depending on what kind of mentoring you require, you may need to add a few more qualities so as to receive maximum benefit out of the relationship.

One way to determine well what you need from your mentor is to clearly define your expectations right from the start. Let him/her know what you want out of the relationship, and when. For instance you could say, “At the end of one month, I would like to be able to write quality content for a business website.” From that expectation it is clear that you need a mentor who is competent in website content and is available for that period of one month.

You may not be able to find all of the above qualities in one person but at least you get the idea – don’t settle for just anyone out there to be your mentor. Have certain standards you are looking for.

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