JMMB Joan Duncan Foundation and The MultiCare Youth Foundation Partner to Empower Youths Through Mentorship
Empowering young people from underserved, inner city communities – including impacting some 26,000 youth over the past 10 years, is one of the achievements that the MultiCare Youth Foundation (MYF) is proud of. Mrs. Glasgow Gentles, executive director of MYF stresses that these vital interventions are all about partnerships. One of its most dynamic partnerships is with decade long partnership with the JMMB Joan Duncan Foundation, serving as an anchor donor, who provides funding to support the MYF’s Mentorship Programme and entrepreneurial initiatives.
In addition, MYF partners with community members such as its volunteer mentors, with a range of corporate and other development supporters, and with sister organisations, public and private, which collaborate on projects benefitting young people and communities.
In fact, this decade long collaboration on mentoring is a “no brainer” for these two Foundations, both devoted to the positive transformation of young lives, as demonstrated in both their missions and activities.
“This partnership is in keeping with the JMMB Joan Duncan Foundation’s mission to positively impact lives and help individuals unearth their greatness. We believe that mentorship is a powerful intervention tool that can assist in transforming lives and building communities even as genuine long lasting relationships are forged. The Foundation also sees this programme as a holistic one, that provides career advancement opportunities and life skills for mentees, in addition to mindset transformation through the Foundation’s Conversations for Greatness programme, shared Kim Mair, CEO of the JMMB Joan Duncan Foundation.
The joint efforts of these two organisations to spread the benefits of mentoring was further enhanced in 2015 when the MYF programme Youth Upliftment Through Employment (YUTE) acquired Youth Opportunities Unlimited (YOU), Jamaica’s premiere mentoring organisation. During the previous 24 years, since its establishment in 1991, YOU provided caring adult mentors for over 2,000 Jamaican adolescents at risk of dropping out of secondary or high school. YOU also facilitated dozens of other community organisations in setting up their own mentoring programmes.
The MultiCare Youth Foundation Mentoring Programme
The MYF Mentoring Programme features a carefully structured system which ensures safety, training and monitoring of mentor-mentee pairs, while encouraging innovation and relaxed relationships that can inspire, groom and empower the young protégées. Volunteer mentors can be of any age or profession, and are recruited from various communities, as well as from career areas relevant to their mentees’ interests and professional goals.
Goal setting is an important early step for the mentor-mentee pairs as career aspirations often play a part in the choice of mentoring partners. Additionally, the programme seeks to broaden the mentees worldview and enhance their life skills. This includes attendance of mentees to sporting or cultural events with mentors together, and other social gatherings, with the key component however being to forge genuine relationships. MYF volunteer mentor, Andrew Anglin reports: “Just listening to someone is so important. It goes a long way in a person’s life if they have someone they can just talk to. Sometimes you just want to air some frustrations, and you want to have a different opinion. It is always a good feeling when you know there’s somebody out there that you can depend on.”
Shakeema Davis, Andrew’s mentee during her training under the recent MYF YUTE Teach Project, agrees emphatically. She explains: “I really wanted somebody that I could honestly sit and talk to, because, trust me, it really helps when you can listen, actually listen to what a person has to say. Some people just want an ear to listen, you know, and for me, that’s what I wanted, and Andrew was always there. If it wasn’t for him, I would have given up long ago. Without his mentoring, I don’t know how I would have managed.”
Shakeema was one of 30 young women who graduated from the 18-month project last month, with HEART NSTA, with a Level 2 certification in Early Childhood Development. All the participants benefitted from the MYF Mentoring Programme, in a similar style to past graduates, over the years.
In many cases, the former mentoring relationships have blossomed into lifelong friendships. Mentoring, the act of an older or more experienced person helping someone younger or less experienced to identify and develop their own potential and positively shape their lives, has been around since the time of the ancient Greeks. “Not many things survive that long, especially approaches to important aspects of living,” notes Alicia Glasgow Gentles, executive director of MYF. She adds, “However, there is a very good reason that mentoring is as valued today – because it has been recognised for centuries as a powerful intervention tool and an effective way to help young people succeed, especially those in difficult circumstances.”