Finding + supporting mentors for pupils in Berlin

PaSch wishes a happy new year to the GlobalGiving team. We hope that 2019 brings good luck and a lot of success to you.

December was an exciting and joyful month for PaSch. Right on the first weekend of the December we hosted two workshops in collaboration with another mentorship project. We hosted mentors and mentees from several projects and made them evaluate their mentoring situation. We presented evaluation tools we developed for this purpose, the “mentoring dairy” and the “mentoring feedback-poster”. The main focus of the workshops was their feedback upon these instruments and in a playful way the mentees gave their opinion and suggested improvements. The workshops offered interesting insights that helped us to further develop the evaluation tools. They will be retested in two follow-up workshops this year.

Afterwards the atmosphere turned more and more festive at PaSch. On 7^th of December we invited all neighbors, friends and also mentors, mentees and their families for our annual winter get together around a bonfire with music, stories and hot drinks. Though it was quite cold, PaSch mentors, their mentees and friends enjoyed the nice atmosphere with us for quite some time. The next highlight followed shortly after: On the 9^th of December the PaSch tandems attended the show of “Blue Man Group”. As a group of 30 people we watched the show that experiments with colors, drum music and humorous sketches. The mentors and mentees had a lot of fun and the children reported the experience proudly to their families and friends.

Before Viola went to maternal leave by the end of December, she handed over the coordination of PaSch to the new colleague Diana. Together the two colleagues received a new volunteer who wants to become a mentor. Diana got to know the PaSch process of evaluating a volunteer’s motivation and skills and had the chance to insights into Viola’s interview routines. The two colleagues ended 2018 with a farewell for a tandem who has been meeting for almost 1,5 years. The mentor’s job got more time-consuming and she became pregnant. Therefor she cannot find the time anymore to maintain the mentoring relationship. Mentor and mentee expressed their gratitude for one another, they exchanged on their favorite activities and agreed upon bowling being the best. The mentee’s mother was very happy with the course of the mentoring relation and wants to continue the process. The boy himself also wishes for a new mentor.

At PaSch the new year started slowly, as the new colleague needed to adjust. Nevertheless PaSch received several requests from potential mentors, so that we could conduct four initial interviews in January. All the applicants showed their suitability and declared their interested in becoming a PaSch mentor. We are very happy to gain new participants for the project and want to offer an initiatory training for them in March. In collaboration with another mentorship project we’ll train the volunteers on intercultural encounters and the concept of resilience. On a long term we want to widen the focus of this initiatory workshop, therefor Diana attended an advanced training on diversity on January the 26^th. Two experts, who are familiar with the academic debates and practical issues alike, presented the newest concepts and methods to illustrate the dynamics of diversity for mentors.

This week is an eventful week at PaSch again: On Friday all mentors are invited for a party; we’ll have dinner, enjoy music and a little theatre show with them. It’s a way to express our gratitude for their commitment and to appreciate their ongoing engagement. The day after, on Saturday the next workshop of the evaluation project takes place. Mentors and mentees from PaSch and other mentoring projects will come together to reevaluate the further development of the evaluation tools, they already rated in December of last year.

On top of that PaSch approaches its next trip, which will lead us to an indoor climbing area on the first weekend of March. Already the children show big interest and excitement, although it’s still a few weeks ahead. I I’m sure I will let you know more about all of this in my next report.

PaSch thanks you for another year of support. The GlobalGiving donations enable us to offer various activities, to accompany our mentees and mentors professionally, and to enrich their mentoring relationship with extraordinary experiences. The donations contribute to the success of our project and makes young pupils in Berlin evolve educationally and personally! Thank you!