E-Mentoring Program for Somalis by Somalis?

[Katrina]

MentorNet's One-on-One Mentoring Programs pair women engineering and science community college, undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs and untenured faculty as proteges with female or male professionals from all sectors as mentors for one-on-one, email-based mentoring (e-mentoring) relationships. Our flagship Industry E-Mentoring Program is for proteges interested in working in industry or at a government laboratory or agency, while our Academic Career E-Mentoring Program is for graduate students, postdocs and untenured faculty pursuing faculty careers. To learn more about MentorNet and all that it has to offer, please visit our web site at www.MentorNet.net.

 

A female friend recently sent me an invite to join MentorNet geared towards women. She received all kinds of helpful advice and is on her second mentor. After reading Sheh's (on minority women)post. I thought how great would it be if we (somalis) could try to establish such a e-mentoring program for our youth or students. Don't we already spend tons of time goofing off, arguing, preaching, flirting online then why can't all those with something to offer spare a few emails for a (confused or eager) teen, college or uni student?

 

What do you (SOL'ers) think? Has this been done before or does it exist right now? Any ideas or suggestions or more importantly does anyone want to initiate such a worthy cause?

I believe it was prophet Muhammad (pbuh) who said, who taught me a verse (letter) I became his/her slave.

 

Thank You

[bilan]

well it is really good idea,i wish i had someone to advise me,and listen to me when i was undergrad,so yeah go for it katrina, i do not mind helping, i think it is easy to find college graduated somalis,but how would you find somali youths who are still in high school.

[Mowgli]

Katrina great idea sis...freaky too...just before I clicked on this section I was thinking about a homework help club sort of thing and I find your topic here ...SOL is a large community with nomads from a variety of different fields...surely we could offer some sort of help or guidance to others in the same field as us or those thinking about it??

 

Will comment more later inshaAllah

[Ibtisam]

great idea. my university runs a e-mentoring programme where in your third year you are given a first year student to mentor on the same course as you. lets just say my one is at the pub al day and i have long stop e-mailing him but it is a great idea for those that wana make it work

[Socod_badne]

How much do they pay? And in what currency? US dollars or e-dollars.

[Katrina]

Bilan honestly thought of it the same night I posted the topic while procrastinating other assignments. You know how it goes. Those are the moments one has their greatest ideas.

The intent was to put the idea out there for someone to roll with it since I have a super busy next few months but I realized we (Somalis) have great ideas all the time but only a few of us really do the time consuming work needed to make great ideas into end results. A friend and I have been sitting on a different idea for (the youth) a while waiting for our schedules to clear but this (e-mentoring) is a much better goal. If for no other reason than today's youth being an internet generation.

It's funny Bilan but I think it would be harder to find willing graduates to participate than high school students. Somali grads today are so negative and self-involved. Most like to believe they accomplished something amazing by graduating (come on now we all know ppl like that ), busy being ambitious with no time to give back except a lot of empty talk, wife/husband hunting here and back in the motherland then moving to the burbs to have 4.8 kids. or believe they've heard all this talk before (during college yrs) and it is a waste of time etc. See where I'm going with this? For example, I heard a lot of SOL'ers ranted and raved about the Tsunami effect on Somalia but when it came to collecting money what happened?

 

About finding Somali youth, I think everything starts small and the word will spread. I can think of at least one Somali infested city that would be a great place to launch e-mentoring.

Before embarking on any project the number one thing do to is RESEARCH and ladies that’s exactly what will be done in the next few months, insha'allah.

 

Lol, ibtisam I know most of our freshmen and sophomores start heading to the bars at 6ish most of the week.

 

Idil looking forward to hearing your comments.

 

SB (shaking head) of course you'll get paid in headaches, chaos, frustration, blame shifting and those are on the good days, occasionally you might get an e-hug, imagine that.

[Socod_badne]

Originally posted by Katrina:

SB

(shaking head) of course you'll get paid in headaches, chaos, frustration, blame shifting and those are on the good days, occasionally you might get an e-hug, imagine that.

What a harrowing prospect!

 

 

E-hug? The de-personalisation march goes on!

 

 

No thank you, count me out.

[Blessed]

Lol Katrina,

 

Whatever I was going to say, you said in your second post. I've explored this idea with a friend a few years back but we were forced to file it after failing to incite graduates into the venture.

 

I think this is a mamoth task brace yourselves for hard work. It is a fabulous idea. Net-Mentoring is soo Somali.

 

I hope it kicks up. I'm very interested, if you'll have me.

[Katrina]

Happy Friday,

 

Ladies thanks a lot for your input and offers, I'm currently registered on Mentornet to get some ideas while another person has already started the preliminary work of setting up a website. Insha'allah by this summer the administrative portion should be complete. I know you all have a full plate and won't ask you to assist in the administrative/web skills unless you have a desire.

I'd then luv to recruit you positive souls (Bilan, ibtisam, idil and last but not least Blessed) as mentors by the summer (IA). If along the way you feel you come across something useful plz just PM me.

 

Salaam

[Resistance]

Such programs already exist here in the UK .. anyone willing to help out contact and i will in turn get u in touch with the right person.

Somali Youths need mentors badly tats for sure .. it needs us to be more organised and focused.

 

waslaam

[Ibtisam]

^^ i don't mind helping out; send me the details

[Dhimbil]

This is excellent idea. But location and time will be the biggest challenge. Not many sol'rs are from the same city. Anyway, if you wanna use recent graduate.....I'm here and I can drag few others.

 

Good luck