PMPS launches a mentorship program
In February, MLI launched our inaugural, virtual PMPS Mentoring Program. This new 12 week program is designed to shape PMPS youth leaders and participating teachers to evolve and become role models to other PMPS youth in their communities, to build their mentorship knowledge base, and to apply their skills through hands-on learning opportunities as facilitators and mentors of the PMPS curriculum. Luz Angela Guzman, MLI’s Program Manager in Colombia and in-country representative, has been engaged with Peacemakers and Problem Solvers since the program’s inception. “Our Peacemaker Leaders are conscious that small changes lead to bigger changes and we know that connecting them with one another contributes to greater positive change. Through the mentorship program, we aim to strengthen our Peacemakers leadership skills, so they can successfully mentor other youngsters to become leaders, inspiring others to collaborate for a better future of their own communities.”
The training program is being led by certified international coach and psychologist, Maria Fernanda Granados, and the inaugural cohort includes 12 participants, primarily from Uraba, Antioquia in Colombia. Asked for her thoughts about mentorship, Ms. Granados says: “To be a mentor is to inspire, is to create closeness to develop, care for, share with, and help others so they can acquire knowledge, skills, and abilities to increase their productivity for the benefit of all.”
MLI decided to check in with a few of the participating mentors-in training, to gain their insight on the program so far.
Mariana Muñoz, 16 years old
Senior High School Student
1. Provide us a little information about your community.
Chigorodó is a multicultural little town located in the Urabá subregion, where people dance from a Bullerengue to a Mapalé, where there are a variety of field crops, such as bananas, cacao, and passion fruit, where we find races from Afro-Colombians to indigenous people. A town full of flavor, culture, and sunny afternoons. Chigorodó is a place where the bright yellow of the sun meets the green fields, where the solution to the heat is those bathes in the river and passion fruit ice pops. Chigorodó is a place full of life, but with few opportunities.
2. Did you know anything about mentorship before starting the MLI Peacemakers and Problem Solvers Mentorship Training Program? I had no knowledge of any kind of mentoring before starting this training program.
3. What qualities do you believe make a good mentor? Motivation, communication, guidance, challenge, and especially good listening.
4. How do you see yourself as future mentor in your community? I see myself as a person capable of guiding my community through leadership, empathy, and good communication.
5. How can you get the best out of this mentorship program? Learning and considering in each step that I give all those lessons that we were given in the program, which are undoubtedly necessary to be a good mentor.
6. What are the most important qualities you need to strengthen in order to guide your own group of young mentees through PMPS? The qualities that I must strengthen the most to carry out a good job as a mentor are, to be someone in whom others can feel listened to and oriented, to be an optimistic and realistic person at the same time, that through leadership and self-knowledge can guide in the right way.
7. What challenges do you see in your community that you can help to address by being a youth mentor?
First, I would like to help my community by removing that bandage of ignorance that they have, helping them to see that society has serious problems and it is necessary to tackle them and contribute to them. Keeping in mind what our problems are, possible solutions can be reached or at least contribute to the improvement of these.
Eva Cano
15 year old senior high school student
1. Provide us a little information about your community.
My community is the municipality of Chigorodó (Guaduas River, in the indigenous dialect). It is located in the Urabá subregion and has more than 57,000 inhabitants.
2. Did you know anything about mentorship before starting the MLI Peacemakers and Problem Solvers Mentorship Training Program? Yes, of course, we had already been given a brief idea of what the program would be, and I knew that it is a way to train ourselves as new leaders for new PMPS groups.
3. What qualities do you believe make a good mentor? I believe that to be a good mentor one must be able to be empathetic and flexible, because as a mentor, different situations can arise that we must understand in order to create or change the way we deal with it. Hand in hand with this, you must also be able to communicate, listen and motivate, this is important to be able to cope with your role as a good leader, thus generating confidence and trust in other people.
4. How do you see yourself as future mentor in your community? The way in which I envision myself as a mentor in my community is by having the ability to instruct new mentors who, like me, want to grow and help our community develop, enjoying their leadership and expecting to make positive impacts from any area they decide to do so.
5. How can you get the best out of this mentorship program? In the first place, the first way is to have high expectations about everything that I can learn and accomplish from it, and the rest of the work comes from attending each of the mentoring sessions and having all the best disposition in it.
6. What are the most important qualities you need to strengthen in order to guide your own group of young mentees through PMPS? I believe that at this time I need to strengthen the confidence and trust that I feel as a leader and that others perceive it. I believe that this is fundamental when you want to establish an organized and steady group.
7. What challenges do you see in your community that you can help to address by being a youth mentor?
I believe that one of the great challenges is fostering in young people the needed confidence that we should have to believe that we can be an agent of change in our community, believe that we are capable of identifying problems, creating ideas and solutions for them.
Kevin Guerra
Teacher