By Mercy Mutandwa | Operations Manager
What a wonderful start to 2022 we have had at the Girl Mentorship Programme! We have thirty new mentees and we have been privileged to hold a few sessions with them during the first term.
First term started a little later than normal for all schools. Amongst other reasons, as a country we were still taking precautions around Covid-19. We are so grateful to the heads of the schools that we work with for going above and beyond to see our selection process through. Our programme is designed for 14-15 year olds who are on the margins of their society. They are girls heavily affected by poverty or come from child-headed or broken family units. The staff at our host schools play a vital role in identifying the girls who are most in need of the programme and we are very grateful to them for that.
We are so pleased that for the few sessions we have run at the three host schools, we have had a hundred percent attendance. Our end of term lunch went down amazingly well, we are not sure how we will top it the next two terms! Coming from different schools, most of the mentees were meeting for the first time and with similar backgrounds they quickly forge a wonderful sense of belonging. Socially, they get something from each other that we could never teach them from a front led session and it’s very heartwarming to watch. We had dance competitions for the first time and had good belly laughs nestled in with the talent! At the end of the lunch, the mentees were asked to paint something that makes them happy. One mentee painted her grandmother’s homestead, a small mud hut with a tree to the left and a bright red sun in the sky. She said it is the most peaceful place she knows.
As our first term was quite a short one, we have taken the opportunity to prepare for the rest of the year. Our gap year student Nicolle has done a fantastic job of re-vamping and re-organising our boxes which hold all the contents needed for each term. Snacks are slightly different for term 2 and we have brand new first aid kits! Some of our mentors had the opportunity to attend a basic First Aid course, a refresher for some and first time for some. Those of you who have followed us for a while may have tweaked by now that every time we meet is an opportunity to build each other and have fun. The First Aid Course was no different! It was a lovely day for mentors to get together and catch up during the holidays.
Our last team building exercise for mentors was a Whatsapp Quiz. It was four categories and more than a thousand messages worth of fun! The winning team won some donated planners and the runners up some donated chocolate.
We are so grateful to our donors who help us create such precious, meaningful, encouraging, educational moments for our mentees. We are grateful to our mentors who term in and term out give of their time and energy. We are looking forward to the rest of 2022 with our new mentees!
By Mercy Mutandwa | Operations Manager
By Mercy Mutandwa | Operations Manager
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
