Mentoring: A Tool for Youth Empowerment and Employment Generation

The journey to building a sustainable society starts with youth development and engagement, which is being fertilized by mentorship. I will star by defining mentorship and how it plays a key role youth development and employment generation.

Mentorship, from Wikipedia definition is a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. In my own words, I will define mentorship as a way of modeling personal development through practical and experiential coaching by a more knowledgeable individual. Mentoring, as a dynamic and ever-changing process, consist of different stages that provide the mentee with the opportunity to learn and develop. A mentor should be aware that each stage of mentorship is a key factor to delivering an effective mentorship services. The four major stages of mentorship are Prescriptive, Persuasive, Collaborative and Confirmative. Prescriptive stage is the first mentoring stage where the mentee usually has little or no experience in his field of interest. This stage is most comfortable for latest mentee, who wholly depend on the mentor for support and direction. This is where the mentor is prescribing, ordering and advising the mentee and also gives due praise and attention to build the mentee’s self-confidence.  During the prescribing stage, the mentor will spoon feed the mentee by providing the mentee every relevant working tools and sharing of inspiring experience. Persuasive stage is the second stage in a mentoring program where mentees are challenged or persuaded to take up new task and do new things. The mentor may suggest new strategies, coach and push mentees into self-discovery. In the collaborative stage, the mentee is assumed to have gained enough experience that will aid collaborative activities between the mentor and mentee. The mentor at this point will work jointly with the mentee to achieve a professional or personal goal since the mentee must have gained some relevant knowledge around the field. Confirmative stage is suitable for mentees with a lot of experience who have mastered the job competencies and is ready to deliver while the mentor just supervises.

For youth development, I cannot over emphasis the relevance of youth actions in building a sustainable society. Looking at youth being the most active group in the society, one can say that they are inevitable and must be duly considered in planning a productive society. One of the best ways of engaging and developing young people is through mentoring program. Focusing on youth development, we must keep in mind certain essential competencies that youth must develop in order to make the relevant in the society. Some of these skills and competencies are Leadership skills, Proactive learning, Entrepreneurial outlook, Global mindset and Emotional intelligence. These skills and competencies are building block to developing a young socially responsible individual. Mentorship program is an important aspect of youths’ learning environment which can effectively guide youths to acquire such skills and competencies within a short time.

Mentoring uses a direct impact process in mentor-mentee relationship because the mentee will have the opportunity to develop any skill or competency that the mentor disposes either by experiential or coaching process. Effective mentorship program affects the key developmental process of an individual; social knowledge, religion, academics, career choice and decision making. When an individual is engaged in a mentoring program, all the above mentioned attributes of the individual is being addressed and affected by the mentor’s coaching. The mentee is undergoing an  experiential developmental programs by the mentor using different working training strategies to ensure that the mentee gains the required skills and knowledge to complete the developmental cycle of an individual.

In the sense of youth development, mentorship is designed to aid youths in acquiring exceptional competencies and practical experiences through different mentoring processes. Mentorship can come from Youth Organizations, peer groups, Teachers, Parents, Religious heads and significant personalities.

Employment generation is an end product of two factors; Skills and Competencies. Looking at our environment critically, it is obvious that youths lack these key projectors of employment generation. For an individual to be employable one must develop certain skills and generating employment requires so much competencies that will act as supporting tool in driving ideas and increasing youth productivity. Employment generation boils down to applying entrepreneurial competencies and that is one important competency that youths must develop to generate employment or be employable. These are focus areas that mentorship tends to deliver these competencies to their mentees. Mentorship program covers skills and competency building so it plays a significant role in youth productivity level. Employment generation is dependent on career choice which is a determinant of mentorship. Mentorship program is an interactive tool to building career choice and practical experience in the field of interest and it has its unique way of building self-confidence because the mentee will be guided through his career path by a mentor and will be given relevant feedbacks from the mentor.

Youth development is directly proportional to employment generation since youths play a key role in socio-economic development of any society. Mentorship is one of the best strategies of developing an individual irrespective of social or religious background that will be able to drive positive growth in the society. While everyone can benefit from a mentor at every point, it is essential to understand that the ultimate goal of implementing a mentoring program is to produce a well-grounded, competent employee who outgrows the tutelage of a mentor. At the end of any mentoring program, the mentee should evolve to the point of acquiring self-motivation, confidence and general social growth.