There are many forms of privilege in our world. One that is sometimes less obvious is knowledge gaps. Mentoring can address this.
If your parents (and perhaps their peers, neighbours, family members) never went to University, or if they never owned their own home, then you will be multiple steps behind others your age when it comes to such major life stages. One way, then, to help address privilege gaps is to mentor others where you have experience and expertise they don’t have and don’t have ready access to.
Beyond the experience and expertise though, mentoring can also be truly powerful in having people, as Oprah says, see the hope inside themselves, particularly as you demonstrate to them how you see their potential and show them you believe in them. When a mentee looks up to you and sees what you have achieved, then what you see in them that they can achieve, it is truly powerful and empowering!
Now, what areas could you offer mentoring help in? Some may seem quite obvious to you, but again, they may be outside of the frame of reference or access for potential mentees via their family, friends, community. Some examples I can think of right away:
- Big Brothers, Big Sisters: I highlight here the BBBS programme in Cayman: “Big Brothers Big Sisters offers a wide range of mentoring opportunities to meet the varied needs of volunteers, children & Littles and their families. Serving as role models, our mentors teach by example the importance of giving and giving back, of staying in school, and of the importance for having respect for family, peers and the community. Each time we pair a child or youth with a mentor or introduce a group of students to a group program, we Start Something.”
- Financial literacy: starting as simple as tracking your income and expenses each month. Beyond that, things as simple as not carrying monthly credit card balances, never running an unauthorised overdraft, living within your means
- Financial planning: looking to the future for such things as buying a home or for pensions. People at the start of their working life can make an enormous difference to their future if they start to look at this right away, yet without mentoring they may wait quite a number of years before they start planning, so making such things as home ownership feel insurmountable at any age.
- University Education and Finance: Getting into University is a multi-year process, getting through it and paying for it afterwards too. All of this can be made easier and more planned out with mentoring help from people who understand it and know the process.
- Career Mentoring: This starts young. I taught my sons from their early teens to always be well presented, as one would never know who would see them and create a first impression. Such a person could be interviewing them for a job later (and this actually happened for one of my sons). Career mentoring can continue in so many different ways through our lives.
Mentor someone. Start Something.