eMentoring

Show your support for eMentoring via twitter by checking out our twitter account @ementoringbc and join the conversation at the Ashoka Inspiring Approaches to FNMI award ceremony using: #ashokafnm and #fnmisummit

Don’t forget to watch the award ceremony that is streaming live right now at:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/inspring-approaches-to-fnmi-learning-summit

Hey eMentoring supporters! Tomorrow Ashoka will be streaming live the “Inspiring Approaches to First Nations, Métis and Inuit Learning” summit in Gatineau, Quebec at 10:45am (PST-Vancouver).  Be sure to check out the link below to see Katherine receive the 2 awards we won!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/inspring-approaches-to-fnmi-learning-summit

Wow! I can’t believe it is the end of the University term already! So far this year has just flown by.  Although the school year is winding down, here at eMentoring we are gearing up to finish off the eMentoing term with a bang!  We have received research approval to begin recruiting in School District 23; which is the Central Okanagan area.  We are hoping this will increase our recruitment of mentees for the fall.  We are planning an end of the year celebration for active and potential new mentees to celebrate our successful year of eMentoring.  We also hope the event will give potential mentees a chance to check out the program. We are discussing the potential of making eMentoring a credit course for mentees, if this is achieved it would be a great way at making our program sustainable over the long term.  We have begun asking our mentors to give us feedback on how our personal quest is structured.  This is only the beginning in improving our program so that it will continue to grow and develop over the years to come.

eMentoring won two awards:

1.  The J. W. McConnell Family Foundation Award for the top entry for post-secondary education from across Canada
2. The Donner Canadian Foundation Community Award for being one of the top entries from across Canada from the online community vote

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Changemakers and their partners* for all of their great work!

*Partners for the initiative include: the Ashoka Changemakers, Chagnon Foundation, The Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada, The Counselling Foundation of Canada, Donner Canadian Foundation, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, The First Nations Education Council, The Girls Action Foundation, The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, Lawson Foundation, Mamow Sha-way-gi-kay-win: North South Partnership for Children, Margaret and Wallace McCain Family Foundation, Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative, Ontario Trillium Foundation, RBC Foundation, Regroupement des centres d’amitié autochtones du Québec, Small Change Fund and Vancouver Foundation

We couldn’t have done this without everyone’s support – so thank you very much!

We have begun the interview process for our second mentor intake.  We have already met alot of promising candidates and we are only half way through the interview process.   We are seeing many more applicants from universities outside of UBC  including SFU and U-Vic.  This means that eMentoring is expanding and we are successfully reaching out to other schools and communities across the province. We can’t wait to meet the rest of our mentor applicants!

Over 30 pairs of mentors and mentees are communicating online through the eMentoring site! We are well on our way to reaching our goal of 50 mentors and 100 mentees. As mentees go through their Personal Quest, they will cover many topics around educational goals and career exploration in health science programs and beyond! Below is an image of the Personal Quest units. Note that each unit is intertwined with a metaphor. Remember that since mentees are in grades 6-12 across the province, they work at their own pace – most are currently working their way through units 1 or 2.

Last Friday we held our very first mentor support session.  We got great feedback from mentors about how they and their mentees are doing in the program so far.  With this feedback we hope to improve aspects of the program to make sure eMentroing is running efficiently as possible.  We also made sure that mentors were up to date about what is going on on our end.  We are planning to do future support sessions to further guide mentors and ensure communication stays strong between everyone involved! Because we are growing so fast with mentor applications coming in from other post secondary institutions such as SFU and UVIC, we are moving these mentor support sessions to an online, webinar format so that we can maximize attendance. A lot of these students have heavy schedules, so arranging day time meetings is often a huge challenge. By hosting webinars online during the evening, mentors can connect from anywhere! Just another smart way to use technology!

Happy 2012 from all of us at eMentoring!  The project has grown so much over the past year and we are eager to begin this year with a running start. The eMentoring version of icouldbe.org has officially gone live and both mentees and mentors have begun to create their accounts and establish relationships.  We are currently in the process of recruiting volunteers for our next intake.  If you are interested in becoming involved with eMentoing or know someone who would be download our mentor application under the Get Involved! tab.  This year is shaping up to be an exciting one.  We hope to learn and grown so much more over the course of this next year and to bring the project to a new level!

The eMentoring Matching Committee had a full-day working meeting at the Surrey School District Building to match our mentors and mentees. Matches were based on career interests, hobbies, personality characteristics, and preferences. The matches are now complete and we feel great about them! Hopefully our mentors and mentees will agree.