Mentorship: Who Can You Look Up To and Where Can You Find Them?

The concept of mentorship initially started as an informal idea where a learned person with experience, guides a less experienced, often younger person in their life. However, in today’s world, mentorship is an important step that is required by many people, from different walks of life. The purpose of mentorship is to provide guidance, advice, motivation, and emotional support if required, while also acting as a role model in the mentee’s life. Essentially, a mentor is someone who helps with the personal and professional growth and development of a mentee. 

Mentorship comes in many forms, if you think about it; because a mentor is someone you look up to. It could be a family member, it could be a friend, or someone you don’t know personally but they have experience in your field. It is also important to recognize and acknowledge the fact that you have the privilege of having a mentor in your life. A lot of people don’t have that kind of a circle around them, that can provide the kind of support and advice they need and this is because they may come from a disadvantaged background that doesn’t necessarily prioritize personal and professional development. Although, there are many mentorship programs in India that provide the kind of guidance that is required by the disadvantaged youth of today. 

1. The Udayan Fellowship Programme was started by Udayan Care, which is an NGO for child rights in India. This program focuses on providing financial support to girl students who are in need. With this, they also give individual attention to each child by counseling and grooming. Other objectives include life skills training and personality development, and they also develop the employability skills of the mentees by teaching them about the career options available and also training them for job-oriented skills. They have had many successful girl students who have graduated and are now working professionals in different fields like engineering, medical, teaching, and many more.

2. Mentor Me India is a non-profit mentoring organization that empowers children that come from low-income families by providing them with strong role models that act as mentors. It is a one-on-one community-based mentoring program and model that provides extensive mentoring and support structure through intensive training and also the engagement of parents. Their mentees are in the age range of 10-12 years and they have a very helpful system that not only benefits the mentees but also provides a learning experience for the mentors.

3. Mentor Together is another organization that provides a one-to-one mentoring relationship that helps young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to break the inequality of opportunity. Their mentee identification process involves going to various government schools, shelter homes, and partner NGOs from where they take mentees in the age range of 13-21 years. They provide life and work skills training in Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, and Delhi.

A mentor serves as a teacher and a counselor for a mentee and one can find a mentor in any profession they’re in or any background they come from. It is a great initiative for so many organizations to provide this kind of an experience for people who may not have the opportunity to find and have a mentor in their life.