How Has Mentoring Transformed Your Life?
January is National Mentoring Month, a month dedicated to encouraging more adults to become mentors to young people. While I have been fortunate enough to have been mentored by some wonderful women throughout my life, I’ve noticed that many young women of color cannot say the same.
For lower-income communities and communities of color, it’s especially important that younger people are able to have tangible proof that what they want to be in life is actually possible.
And mentoring isn’t just for younger people. Women and young women of color are often entering new territory in which we’ve been told that we don’t have the knowledge and tools to succeed. We look around and notice that there aren’t many of us around, and we’re bombarded daily with stereotypical images that don’t show us in a positive light.
Why is mentoring important?
According to the Young Women of Color Advocates and Leadership, a tool developed by the Women of Color Network, mentoring is a relationship of mutual understanding and trust between someone with more experience (the mentor) and someone with less experience (the mentee). Mentoring relationships allows for the building of new relationships and also an exchange of ideas and advice. Mentoring, when done right, allows for the mentee and the mentor to have a constant exchange of various perspectives and knowledge building that are beneficial to both.
With mentors serving in a variety of roles, such coach, teacher, and advisor, mentees benefit from mentoring relationships because they increase their knowledge of a particular subject (a career field, sport, or passion), they build their skills and self awareness, and are introduced to new ways of thinking about themselves and about life. Being mentored by someone who has “been there and done that”, allows for mentees to avoid many pitfalls on their way to becoming who they envision themselves to be. (more…)
