Mentoring
The objective of Global Impact Initiative’s Mentoring Program is to provide underserved students and young adults with mentors who can help them develop and clarify their academic and career goals. Gii embraces mentoring as a key element of operations because its format provides unique benefits. While Gii often incorporates mentorship as a means to an end in our other initiatives, we are currently offering two different virtual mentoring options, each with its own focus: Group Mentoring and Peer-to-Peer Mentoring.
Traditional instruction endeavors to deliver both practical and theoretical knowledge. However, mentorship has a particular, unparalleled ability to transmit firsthand lessons about the workplace to those who will soon start or are just beginning their professional journey. Its engaging format allows for lessons and guidance targeted to a mentee’s specific situation. Many mentees gain knowledge that benefits them both personally and professionally — throughout the mentoring experience and beyond.
Typically, the duration of the program is 3-6 months, with either bi-monthly 30-minute sessions (one-on-one) or a weekly 60-minute session (group). Whether in the group setting or the one-on-one format, Gii provides academic and career assistance online locally and to areas throughout the world in order to serve, empower, and uplift the under-resourced communities.
Group Mentoring (Virtual)
In 2021, with 50,000 Afghan refugees arriving in the United States, hundreds of whom are re-settling in and around Gii’s homebase of Austin, Texas, Gii has nimbly adapted its traditional mentoring program to best serve Afghan women. On the first Sunday of each month, international women who have already resettled successfully in the United States, join our new Afghan neighbors online over Zoom to share the challenges and joys they have experienced and discuss the unique needs of female refugees in an interactive Q&A, with the help of an interpreter.
Advantages of Group Mentoring
These sessions are geared toward making the refugee women feel welcome and respected in their new community, help reduce their anxiety, build a sense of belonging, and develop a social support network. The refugee women are encouraged to share their perspectives, successes, and concerns. The sessions also give the women a chance to develop their leadership skills and raise their awareness of human rights and women's health issues. The U.S. women listen keenly to the concerns expressed and help contact the appropriate authorities if intervention is needed.
Outcomes
This Group Mentoring format addresses the basic need for human connection, especially among refugees. So far, Gii's virtual mentoring has helped foster meaningful relationships and establish deeper communication among the entire group. The first cohort of 69 participants wrapped up their session in January, and Gii started with a new group on Sunday, Feb 6, which has 54 participants.
2021 Recap
Gii began the year with a traditional mentoring program in a virtual setting. Our 2021 cohort had 16 participants (8 pairs) and lasted 3 months. Mentees were provided with academic or career guidance based on their unique interests and skill sets, and they were encouraged to prepare questions in advance to ensure a productive meeting. Best practices indicated that each meeting should end with actionable next steps for the mentee, and the following meeting should include a report on the status of those next steps determined in the last meeting, regardless of status of completion. Regular check-ins kept the momentum going. In addition to mentoring, there were optional workshops, which provided mentees with opportunities to gain and practice useful academic and career skills, such as resume building, writing cover letters, and interview tips. Working with their mentors, mentees received a more clarified personal mission and tangible goals, and they wrapped up their term with the necessary skills and confidence to pursue their goals.
Peer-to-Peer Mentoring (Virtual)
Peer-to-peer mentoring is a mutually supportive and beneficial relationship between two people who are at the same career stage or age. Peer mentoring is typically done one-on-one, but it can also be experienced as a group. The key element here is co-learning, helping each other through sharing your own experiences, opening your mind, and experiencing both self and peer development.
Advantages of Peer-to Peer-Mentoring
The similarity in age and development means greater rapport between the two participants and creates an environment where the balance is even. It allows for greater understanding and open conversations built on shared experiences. It is a wonderful platform for participants from different backgrounds, cultures and languages to share their experiences and discover similarities and differences and through this expand their knowledge and experience.
Stages of Peer-to-Peer Mentoring
1. Participants are matched with a peer or peer group based on their short profile.
2. Younger participants are put in touch with their peer(s) through a hosted set of six sessions based around themes of interest for specific groups and ages. This helps facilitate connections. The use of Zoom enables group sessions followed by breakout rooms where peer pairs interact with each other. There are options to have less supported peer mentoring, where peers arrange meetings independently after an initial hosted meeting, depending on the requirements of the organizations and individuals.
3. After the final session, peers can choose to stay in touch with each other outside the hosted program.
4. Participants write a summary of their experience and provide feedback via a form.
Support From Gii
Peers are supported throughout the entire program, and the Gii mentoring team checks in regularly to confirm that everything is going well. We share guidance notes to get mentorships going. After a couple of meetings, peers typically have built a connection with each other. It is important to reflect and learn from each session. This is really the main point of peer-to-peer mentoring. It is about each peer’s development.
Outcomes
This program gives participants a great opportunity to see the world from a different angle, learn, share ideas, and grow. Participants are asked to keep short notes to make it possible to write a short summary about the experience. To help Gii make improvements to the program, we send out a feedback form and look forward to hearing about each experience.
Please contact us at hello@globalimpactinitiative.com for further information.
2021/22 Recap
Partnering with a U.S. Mission project in Turkey called Be the Voice of Girls, Gii has developed a peer-to-peer mentoring program focused on providing a space to build mutually supportive and beneficial relationships between two people or groups of people who are at the same career stage or age. This is being done in collaboration with the Little Gems School, India, and has proved to be successful. Peers have chosen to additionally write “pen pal” style letters to each other describing a woman that they admire in celebration of International Women's Day. They will decorate these letters, which will be displayed in their schools and virtually. The Peer-to-Peer program has the flexibility to incorporate additional activities such as this that peers are interested in.
