Providing leadership and mentorship opportunities to the South African youth. The roots of the practice are lost in antiquity.
BEMYM3NTOR’S MENTORSHIP PROGRAMME
Our definition of Mentorship is a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person and process that always involves communication and is relationship based, but its precise definition is elusive. Our mentoring process involves informal transmission of knowle
dge, social capital, and support perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional development. It entails informal communication, usually face-to-face and during a sustained period of time. The word itself was inspired by the character of Mentor in Homer's Odyssey. Though the actual Mentor in the story is a somewhat ineffective old man, the goddess Athena takes on his appearance in order to guide young Telemachus in his time of difficulty. OUR MENTORSHIP TECHNIQUES
1.Catalyzing: when change reaches a critical level of pressure, learning can escalate. Here the mentor chooses to plunge the learner right into change, provoking a different way of thinking, a change in identity or a re-ordering of values.
2.Showing: this is making something understandable, or using your own example to demonstrate a skill or activity. You show what you are talking about, you show by your own behavior.
3.Harvesting: here the mentor focuses on "picking the ripe fruit": it is usually used to create awareness of what was learned by experience and to draw conclusions. The key questions here are: "What have you learned?", "How useful is it?". TYPES OF MENTORING RELATIONSHIPS
There are two broad types of mentoring relationships: formal and informal.
1) Informal relationships develop on their own between partners.
2) Formal mentoring, on the other hand, refers to a structured process supported by the organization and addressed to target populations. In business, formal mentoring is part of talent management addressed to populations such as key employees, newly hired graduates, high potentials and future leaders. CATEGORIES OF MENTORSHIP WE OFFER
HIGH-POTENTIAL MENTORSHIP
High-potential mentoring programs are used to groom up-and-coming employees deemed to have the potential to move up into leadership roles. Here the employee (protégé) is paired with a senior level leader (or leaders) for a series of career-coaching interactions. These programs tend to be smaller than more general mentoring programs and mentees must be selected to participate. MENTORSHIP IN EDUCATION
In many secondary and post-secondary schools, mentorship programs are offered to support students in program completion, confidence building and transitioning to further education or the workforce. We are engaging with current students in career mentorship through on the Job shadowing & revealing conflicts in job expectations and reality. The students who complete the programme receive professional recommendations to build a more credible CV. BUSINESS MENTORING
The concept of mentoring has entered the business domain as well. This is different from being an trainee; a business mentor provides guidance to a business owner or an entrepreneur on the entrepreneur's business. We focus on issues relating to Tax, Accounting, Financial management & reporting. There is strong evidence to suggest that business mentoring can have real benefits for entrepreneurs, but highlights some key factors that need to be taken into account when designing mentoring programs for this to be the case, such as the need to balance a formal and informal approach and to appropriately match mentors and mentees.
