Mentoring the underprivileged

It was a usual Saturday afternoon in July when 30 underprivileged girls met 30 working professionals in a classroom in Shindewadi Municipal Public School in Dadar.

It was a usual Saturday afternoon in July when 30 underprivileged girls met 30 working professionals in a classroom in Shindewadi Municipal Public School in Dadar. The meeting,a part of a one-year programme,is confident of building a strong one-on-one relationship between the mentors and their students.

Mentor Me India (MMI),a non-profit mentoring organisation based in Mumbai led by a young team from Harvard University,has brought these children and their mentors together. With an objective to help children from low-income communities to grow to their full potential by supporting enduring one-on-one relationships with strong role models,MMI,similar to the American Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) youth mentoring programme,aims to be the first such national-level organisation in the country.

Executive Director and Masters candidate at the Harvard,Dayoung Lee,volunteered with NGO Ashansh in 2011. Observing the effort put in to train a child in the classroom,she conceived the idea of a mentorship programme.

In February,the programme was started in Mumbai in partnership with Akanksha,under which 30 girls between the age of 9 and 12 years from Shindewadi MPS were paired with 30 women.

While the students were randomly chosen,careful thought went into choosing the mentors, said Fiona Vaz,the organisations operations manager. Earlier,Vaz was the vice principal of Shindewadi MPS school.

Around 100 working professionals had applied for the mentorship programme after advertisements were posted on social networking sites. The applicants who volunteered for it include lawyers,teachers,journalists,among other professionals. We finalised on 30 applicants. We paired the students based on their personalities and interests, said Vaz. The women are between the age-group of 21 and 35 years.

Under the programme,the mentors are required to meet the children at least twice a month. Occasionally,they take the children for outings.

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The experiences are shared in a journal which is evaluated by the MMC.

Although the programme spans over a year,the organisers are hopeful that the mentors and their mentees would share a more lasting bond.

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