Mentor – Building core employability skills and ethical productive mindsets

ABOUT MENTORSHIP

Most students from low-income backgrounds do not personally know educated, successful adults, who would take the time to speak with them and guide them. Just two conversations per month with a group of mentees is surprisingly impactful to motivate students and move them along on their personally chosen path and to help them graduate from FEA.

Mentors make a significant difference simply by taking an interest in the life of the mentee. Just being there for the mentee makes the mentee feel valuable.

Apart from scheduling and providing a brief profile, no formal preparation is required on the part of the mentor. Mentors can provide their profile or we can use their LinkedIn profile.

FEA offers two different mentorship programs: one for urban youth and another for rural youth.

1. Urban Mentorship: This program encourages students to talk about their personally chosen career path. Mentors motivate students to work on their career plan and help them to think beyond limited career options.

2. Rural Mentorship: This program helps students discover different career paths and employment opportunities available to them. Mentors motivate students by sharing real life challenges and how to overcome those difficulties.

The long term impacts of both mentoring programs are incalculable. The mentored students are more likely to mentor or be a role model to their peers and thereby have a positive influence on those around them. Mentees perform better in interviews, work better in teams and interact better in social situations. They tend to earn more than those who have not been mentored and even learn to handle challenges better and overcome depression. In the long run, they live more fulfilling lives.

OBJECTIVE OF FEA’S URBAN & RURAL MENTORSHIP PROGRAM

The aim of FEA’s mentorship program is to motivate students and move them along on their personally chosen path and to help them graduate from FEA. The idea is to help them better understand what professional paths are available to them, which of those might be appropriate
for them, and what they need to do to get there.

Concretely, by the last session of the mentorship
program, every student in the class should be able to speak about what they want to do, why they want to do it, how they intend to go about it, and how they plan to overcome specific adversities they foresee.

HOW IS IT CONDUCTED

Mentorship consists of a Zoom-based conversation twice every month.

1. Urban Mentorship: Zoom – based conversation for 60 – 90 minutes twice a month for 2-3 months (total 5 calls). The conversation with students will be in English.

2. Rural Mentorship: Zoom – based conversation for 90 – 120 minutes twice a month for 1.5-2 months (total 4 calls). The conversation with students will be in Hindi.

Before the mentorship session, mentors will receive information about the students with whom they will interact over the next few months. Their names, age, educational background, language competency, hobbies and career aspirations will be provided to the mentor.

ROLE OF A MENTOR

Mentors are trusted advisers.
Mentors can help mentees reflect on the areas they can improve as an individual.
Mentors stimulate the personal and professional growth of the mentee.
Mentors offer encouragement and help mentees deal with adversity.
Mentors help set up boundaries and integrate positive discipline practices.
Mentors are sounding boards for mentees’ ideas and can offer an empathic ear.
Mentors make a significant difference by just being present and by taking an interest.
Mentees can learn from mentor’s experience and learn from the mistakes the beginners make.

SUPPORT FOR MENTORS

FEA supports mentors by providing suggested talking points and a structure for each call, in addition to facilitating the calls:

Mentorship Program Guide for Urban

Mentorship Program Guide for Rural

THE MENTORING CALL

Structure of Urban Mentorship calls

The urban mentorship session is divided into 5 calls. The calls are organized as follows:

Call 1

Introduction

Students and mentors introduce each other and share general questions and background.

Call 2

Discovering your Career

Mentors help students begin thinking about future careers through the framework: What do you like, what are you good at, and what does society value?

Call 3

Preparing for your Career

Mentors guide students in beginning to think about the steps necessary to enter these careers.

Call 4

Dealing with Adversities

Mentors help students imagine challenges they will face and how they will deal with them by sharing personal stories and offering other tools.

Call 5

Reviewing your career plan

After every call, students will complete a worksheet leading up to a completed career plan. In this call, they will present these for feedback from the mentors and their peers.

Structure of Rural Mentorship calls

The rural mentorship session is divided into 4 calls. The call share organized as follows:

Call 1

Introduction

Students and mentors introduce themselves, share their background and ask general questions.

Call 2

Discovering your Career

Mentors help students begin thinking about their career choices through an activity called ‘Journey into Your Dream Village.’ Students will talk about what they are good at and how they can be successful and happy in their career.

Call 3

Selecting and preparing for your career

Mentors guide students to think about their future careers through the framework: what do you like, what are you good at and what does society value?

Call 4

Goal setting and dealing with adversity

In this call, mentors extend the conversation on goal setting. They help students to foresee the challenges they may face and how they can deal with them by sharing personal stories and other tools.