(2 minute read)
Mentoring with Citywise has provided me with purpose, motivation, and a whole lot of laughter amidst the stress of a global pandemic, and whilst I complete my final year at university!
My first experience of being a 1:1 mentor has been fully online. The thought of this made me quite apprehensive at first. I wondered how I could be of any use to someone I had never met as a mentor through a computer screen.
My expectations have well exceeded me. Despite having far more technical hitches than I would care to admit, my mentoring journey has proved not just to be beneficial to the child I am mentoring (let’s call her Evie), but extremely beneficial to me during such testing times.
An online mentoring success story
Each week we follow the Citywise Wisebook, a curriculum that guides children with the help of their mentor through seven steps of character growth. When Evie and I reached step three, Goal Setting, I thought I would need to muster up my own examples of short-term goals to encourage her to think of her own. However, Evie quickly and thoughtfully replied that she had been thinking a lot about climate change recently, and how everyone in her house could recycle more.
The session plan I had in front of me prompted me to ask how could she make her goal actionable? Leaving me almost speechless, Evie was quickly able to offer me her proposal. She could make a rota for everyone in her house where they would record daily for three weeks what each person recycled, and offer a prize as an incentive!
I left that mentoring session truly laughing out loud! While I was struggling with looming deadlines to reach my own goals, Evie was single-handedly tackling climate change head on.
All it took was the right question to help her realise she has the power inside her to change her world.
This interaction meant I could nurture so much of Evie’s creativity and kindness. Whilst I would love to take credit for how well Evie is progressing within Citywise, it has been a privilege to help her realise her strengths and put her passions into action. All it took was the right question to help her realise she has the strengths inside her to change her world. By nurturing this skill, there’s no limit to what Evie can do.
So if you ever get the chance to mentor with Citywise – online or in person – take it, you might just be mentoring a world changer!
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