My One Week in Detroit: Insights from the CEE Mentor Orientation Program

As I stepped off the plane in Detroit, Michigan, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement mixed with jet lag. I had come to Detroit for the CEE Mentor Orientation Program, a week-long training program for mentors in the Community Engagement Exchange (CEE) program sponsored by the State Department of the USA and organized by IREX . Little did I know that this experience would be so much more than just a training program.

On the first day of the program, I met my fellow mentors in person for the first time. We had previously only communicated via Zoom, and it was surreal to finally be in the same room and timezone together. Our group consisted of mentors from all over the world, with diverse backgrounds and unique stories to share.

Under the guidance of our wonderful coach, Carmen McSpadden , we dove right into the curriculum. We were split into mentor groups based on the topics we were focusing on in our work, and I was placed in the youth engagement group. We also each had a mentor partner, and I was fortunate to be paired with the enthusiastic and supportive Joybert Javnyuy .

WHAT DID WE LEARN?

Throughout the week, we explored a variety of topics related to mentoring, including trauma-conscious mentoring, avoiding assumptions, and understanding our roles as mentors.

Here are a few highlights I am taking out of the curriculum:

• Trauma conscious mentoring - take into consideration the trauma the mentee and you as a mentor went through in life whether it is one time trauma, complex or historic trauma. Make sure you mentor from the position of the healed scars and not open wounds.
• Do not make an ass of you and me - be aware of any assumptions you are making about the other person based on very small and sometimes no information about the individual. It usually leads to a dark place, where both parties feel uncomfortable.
• Do not forget that you are a mentor not a psychologist and when you feel there could be a psychologic issue make sure you point mentees to a direction of professional help. In the end as uneducated person in this particular field you could do more damage than good.
• Usually the most important aspect of mentoring is to show up and listen. This seems intuitive, but there is a lot of people that do not show up or when they do, they are not fully present. Make sure the other party knows you care about them and their cause.
• Confirmation that discussion and project method are more effective than frontal way of teaching. Most of the curriculum was taught in long blocks through a frontal method and not much time was left for group discussions. There was a consensus throughout participants that this aspect was missing and most of the information I remember from the training program come from the discussions with other individuals and seldom from the lectures themselves.

The most rewarding aspect of the program was the opportunity to meet and get to know the CEE fellows. These are young leaders from all over the world who are working on community projects in their home countries, and who are supported by the CEE program. Joybert and I were assigned to mentor a group of fellows during their three-month stay in the United States, and it was amazing to hear about their projects and aspirations.

GET TO KNOW OUR AMAZING MENTEES

Deborah Kansiime from Rwanda:

• Deborah is a research assistant at the Health Development Initiative. In her role, Deborah gathers information from Rwanda's most vulnerable communities, transcribes interviews, attends training on community work, and distributes necessary materials to improve the overall health of key populations.
• Holds several notable positions, including being a Global Challenges student at African Leadership University, a Mastercard Foundation Scholar, a research assistant at Health Development Initiative (HDI), and a volunteer champion at Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO).
• Deborah will complete her practicum with Atlanta Harm Reduction Coalition in Atlanta, Georgia and hopes to explore effective strategies for effectively addressing health related social challenges in her community.

Adama Borway from Sierra Leone:

• Finda is youth development activist and global representative for Sierra Leone at the She Leads advisory board. In her roles, Finda empowers young people through hands-on skills training such as gara tie-dye, weaving, and tailoring.
• She also provides leadership and entrepreneurship training to young women.
• Finda will complete her practicum with YWCA Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah and hopes to learn critical thinking, problem solving, and strategies for creating safe spaces and fostering inclusion.

Kagabika Heritier from Rwanda:

• Heritier is an agriculture consultant and founder of WePush. In his roles, Heritier educates his community on sustainable farming pracices. He is passionate about rural community development.
• He provides agronomic advice and consulting services to farmers and entrepreneurs, with a focus on regenerative solutions that address root causes of unsustainable agriculture and teaches them how to make it sustainable.
• Heritier will complete his practicum with Raleigh City Farm in Raleigh, North Carolina and hopes to expand his skillset and learn more about transformational leadership in developing rural communities.

Viktor Lesyk from Ukraine:

• Viktor is a product owner at Infopulse and a digital consultant at Building Ukraine Together. In his roles, Viktor provides IT services to several companies by developing and managing their software solutions.
• He also helps his NGO to implement a CRM solution in their work to streamline their business processes and collect, process, and analyze their data more efficiently.
• Viktor will complete his practicum with E-Collaborative for Civic Education in Bethesda, Maryland and hopes to strengthen his leadership, publicity, storytelling, and networking skills.

Lucie Smolková from the Czech Republic:

• Lucie is a trainer and manager at the Czech Environmental Partnership Foundation. In her roles, Lucie helps to restore the relationships between people and nature.
• She strengthens partnerships and networks for a resilient democratic environment and develops capacity-building workshops for community leaders and youth.
• Lucie will complete her practicum with Climate Reality in Washington, D.C. and hopes to gain new experiences in creating partnerships for sustainability transition that she can adapt to her home context.

Jane Chimfwembe from Zambia:

• An accomplished administrator, educator, and lead coordinator for Girls in ICT in Zambia.
• Specializes in providing education and mentorship to young people in both urban and rural communities.
• Completing her practicum with the Catamount Institute in Colorado Springs, where she hopes to strengthen her critical thinking skills and explore youth-tailored programs to enhance youth participation.

Marcellinus Ngongchia from Cameroon:

• A youth educator at ELGRA Bilingual School in Cameroon, responsible for designing and implementing educational programs to prepare high school students for their academic and professional goals.
• Completing his practicum with Mitzvah Circle in Philadelphia, where he hopes to expand his network and project implementation skills to support his work back home.
• Passionate about making a difference in the lives of young people in Cameroon and beyond.

In coming weeks fellows of the CEE program will be arriving to their host cities, families and organisations, where they will get to know the local culture, way of work and get insights that will help them to become more effective with a greater impact in their home countries.

WHAT DID I GET OUT OF MY CEE EXPERIENCE IN DETROIT?

After spending seven days at the orientation in Detroit, I would summarise my journey in a few bullet points:

• I gained new friends from all parts of the world, including Pakistan, Fiji, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Hungary, Cameroon, Poland, Slovakia, Armenia, Zambia, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, Ukraine, Palestine, Romania, and many others. I found it incredible that the CEE program was able to bring together such proactive, entrepreneurial people in one place. For a week, I felt that anything was possible with the right people and mindset.
• Although the orientation was seven days long, the curriculum in any of the days did not provide me with much new or groundbreaking information, except for the one on trauma-conscious leadership, which was completely new to me. I am eager to start applying it in my work with international teams.
• I am also glad that I experienced a combination of frontal learning with a few discussion sessions and group work. It allowed me to see that both types of teaching are necessary, but finding a balance between them is challenging, especially when the lectures are for 150 people from different cultures and with varying interests. For my own preferences, I would appreciate more discussions and group work and less time listening to lectures.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in Detroit, and I recommend the CEE program to anyone interested in meeting entrepreneurial and proactive people from around the world and becoming part of their journey.

If you're interested in becoming part of the CEE program, visit the following link: https://www.irex.org/program/community-engagement-exchange-program-application-information.

The next application process will start in fall 2023.