How mentoring changed me

Mentoring is another buzzword that many people talk about in relation to their personal or professional lives nowadays. One of the first mentoring encounters I came across is in Homer’s Odyssey. Mentor?was a friend of Odysseus, and when Odysseus left for the Trojan War, he placed Mentor in charge of his son, Telemachus.

Returning to my own story, I must confess that over many years I benefited from various mentors in my personal and professional life. Mentoring in many ways has been a stabiliser, and has replaced the void left by my father’s odyssey, as it did for Telemachus. However, this is not to say that mentoring is helpful only in circumstances like these.?

In March 2020, I decided to switch sides and started mentoring a young boy. Little did I know at the start how much this process would change me.?

Here are a few lessons I learned while mentoring:

Be present

As we all know, in March 2020, something else happened. The pandemic kicked off meaning that most of last year’s sessions were online. This raised many challenges, including how to build a relationship with a young boy who I only had opportunity to meet only once in person, and who was full of energy after spending all day doing school online.?

During our online sessions, I learned how to be adaptable and?creative to tailor the sessions to his needs and balance it with meaningful content.

All he wanted to do was play and rightly so. If I was his age, the last thing I would want is to listen to a ‘stranger’ telling me about something that I was only vaguely interested in.?

I sought to enter his fascinating world and allow him to have a voice in what we do. When he wanted to play, we played. If he wanted to watch Premier League highlights, we watched the highlights. But I also made sure we had some time to do some cardio exercises, chat and read from different books.?

Mentoring is fun

However, once we could meet in person things become full of good energy and enjoyment. From trips to the local city farm, playing football or games, and occasionally visiting a local bakery (we kept things healthy!), we had loads of fun.

My mentee is a great boy with loads of potential, potential awaiting deployment for the benefit those around him. But I also at times wondered if society and the world around him is ready to receive it? To accept him for who he is and what he can offer? Can the school see his natural potential and provide him with support and understanding so that he can go as far as he wants or hasn’t even dreamed of??

Life’s not fair (not even when you’re a child)

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, this young boy wore a red t-shirt with black capital letters saying BLACK LIVES MATTER. I remember him asking me about my views on race and police treatment of black men.

This made me slightly sad because these are not things that a boy his age should be thinking about. When I was his age, all I was worried about is when I could play and why the summer holiday was taking so long to come.

This made me understand better the pain and worries many children and their families bear (and others are spared) simply because of the colour of their skin.

Representation matters

At the end of a challenging, but beautiful, 15 months of mentoring, we celebrated in style. We went to a large cinema to see a fun movie, ate loads of popcorn, and had a great time together.?

After the movie, I gave him Guvna B’s latest book as a present. As I handed him the gift together with a letter, I noticed his eyes became big and lit up when he saw a black man on the book’s front cover. My take on it is this: representation matters because it empowers others to aspire, dream big and know that it’s possible.?

I remain grateful for the trust placed in me by his family and the charity who facilitated this.

I sought to mentor this young boy but inadvertently he mentored me. The time I spent with him brought me a lot of joy, changed me for the better and unconsciously healed some ‘old wounds’.

The future is his and I’ll keeping rooting for him!

Thank you, big man!?