Mentorship programmes have come under the spotlight recently. In early July 2018, the Mentoring Alliance was launched, bringing together 11 organisations that aim to grow mentoring schemes for youth.
The benefits of having mentors are long-lasting and life-changing, according to former school dropouts interviewed by The Sunday Times. They became mentors themselves, creating a virtuous cycle by paying it forward as role models for vulnerable youth who may face similar challenges as they did.
Mr Alex Judah Lim, who used to be a juvenile delinquent, is one of them. When he was 15, he was sent to the Singapore Boys’ Home, a juvenile residential home. He felt he had hit rock bottom, but the mentors he met during and after his one-year stay at the home helped him change for the better.
Mentors he met in and outside the boys’ home helped him find a way out of his “self-destructive” life. They include the supervisors and volunteers at the Home who encouraged him; the principal at his secondary school who took him back despite his previous misbehaviour; and the teachers who stayed back after school to help him catch up after years of not focusing on his studies.
Today, the bachelor is a senior financial consultant and also runs a business as a distributor of luxury beverages. As a board adviser for Architects Of Life, a social enterprise focusing on youth at risk and former offenders, he now mentors young people.
At Architects Of Life, which is part of the Mentoring Alliance, he guides those he mentors in their personal development, as well as trains them in financial literacy and entrepreneurial skills such as coming up with business ideas.
Mentoring need not be restricted to individual relationships, according to Dr Roland Yeow, 41, the executive director (designate) of Boys’ Town. The one-stop centre for children and youth at risk provides residential, community and other services.
Dr Yeow was himself a boarder there as an adolescent and he had individual mentors. But, he adds, there are different aspects to mentorship, such as the “structured discipline” at Boys’ Town as a teen, which he found to be character-building.
Having a structured daily routine helped him gain discipline and learn to work with his peers from different and often troubled backgrounds, he says. He was also given leadership opportunities such as when he became a prefect in Boys’ Town, which offered residents various positions of responsibility.
He returned to Boys’ Town as a youth worker 14 years ago after working for a few years in corporate and soft skills training. He also takes office as executive director at Boys’ Town on Sept 1.
Mr Joe Chan, head of Reach Youth Services at Reach Community Services, says that mentoring can “complement and supplement” services supporting disadvantaged youth, such as counselling services, therapy and working with a social worker.
He says that “interest-based” programmes, such as sports or music, are a way of engaging youth at his organisation, where befrienders and mentors can interact more informally with teens who sign up for group activities such as dragon-boating or baking. Reach Community Services is part of the Mentoring Alliance.
Youth mentorship schemes need not be confined to disadvantaged or troubled young people, industry insiders note.
Focus on the Family Singapore has a programme called FamChamps, which aims to equip young people in building strong and loving families in their own homes and communities.
“While some of these youth may come from challenging family backgrounds, the majority have intact families,” says Ms Delia Ng, the team lead for FamChamps. She adds that some youth have sought reconciliation with estranged family members through the help of mentors who have gone through similar family crises, while young people from strong family backgrounds have benefited in other ways, such as by learning from their mentors how to show appreciation for their parents or how to communicate effectively in conflicts.
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Source: The Straits Times, 29 July 2018