A critical component of the Education into Employment (EiE) programme which Survivors Fund (SURF) has developed in partnership with the Student’s Association of Survivors of the Genocide (AERG) is a mentoring scheme.
EiE supports disadvantaged youth, many of whom are orphans. At its core is the aim to help them to become more employable in the job market. We do this by helping them to gain skills that employers are looking for such as English, IT and some experience.
But this is not enough. Young people need to understand how the world of work is. They need to believe in themselves and be motivated. They need a coach, an adult role model to help them to achieve this.
This is why we have developed the Forward Vision | Mentoring Programme to complement our other work. It allows young people, who have lost many of their adult role models in their life, to have access to and meet regularly with a professional working within their area of interest. They can learn from them and be inspired by them. It will help them to go on and achieve what they want and to get a job. And this will not just benefit them, but their younger siblings, whose education they may be able to support financially.
We are now on a big drive to recruit new mentors. Our target is to have 225 mentor-mentee pairs this year. Each mentor commits a couple of hours a week over a 3 month period.
If you are interested in learning more about the programme, then please read this further information on mentoring. If you are in Rwanda, and would like to volunteer as a mentor, then please complete and return this mentor application form. If you have any contacts or friends who you think may be interested, then please do forward this on to them. If you have any questions, please do contact the EiE team.
Thank you.
