Tag Archives: Mentoring

Want to be a mentor to women in Bangladesh, India, Israel or Palestine?

16 Jun

Last week,  I had a very interesting meeting with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women (CBFfW), a relatively new charity set up by barrister Cherie Blair, which aims to strengthen the capacity of women entrepreneurs in countries where they lack equal opportunities,  thus enabling them to grow their businesses and become greater contributors to their economies.

The Foundation aims to offer women better access to business development support networks and finance in areas of the world which include India, Israel, Kenya, Malawi and Palestine.

The CBFfW is now launching  their Mentoring Women in Business Pilot and if you’d like to be a Mentor … read on.

The 10-month pilot programme will support women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, India, Israel and Palestine through mentoring. Approximately 30 entrepreneurial women will be mentored by 40 successful entrepreneurs or professionals. The pilot aims to demonstrate that there are measurable and tangible benefits from partnering women with entrepreneurial potential in developing and transition countries with successful Mentors in the UK using Google’s online applications such as Sites, Docs, Chat and Gmail. The pilot will involve testing exciting new formats and applications, so the Foundation is  looking for Mentors who are willing to be at the forefront of the development of this extraordinary international programme.

Being a Mentor is a great opportunity to share your knowledge and experience while helping others to succeed and learn about other cultures, places, businesses and market opportunities. Your participation in the Mentoring Women in Business Pilot will require a minimum of one hour of your time every two weeks, and the more you engage,  the more you will help shape the future of the Mentoring Programme.  Some of the Mentors applying for the pilot will be matched with a Mentee by July and will be able to start the mentoring relationship right away, while others will be matched in October, when a second group of Mentees will be ready to participate in the programme. Some Mentors will not be matched with a Mentee, but their involvement in the programme will be crucial for the successful management of the mentoring Platform, as they will be able to contribute to the public forums and share their expertise with Mentors and Mentees alike. The pilot phase will finish in May 2011.

Mentors are asked to provide a minimum donation of £100 per year to help support the programme and will be given training from Google on how to use Google’s applications and from renowned experts, Clutterbuck Associates and the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, Cambridge Judge Business School, on how to develop a strong and effective mentoring relationship. The one-day training course for the Mentors will be on July 14th (it’s free) and will be a great opportunity to learn new skills and to network with like-minded people.

The Platform built with Google to run the Mentoring Women in Business Programme is now ready; if you would like additional information or have any questions, you can contact the programme’s project manager via gc@cherieblairfoundation.org

If, having browsed the site, you’d like to apply to become a Mentor, please apply now, as the the application deadline is 23rdJune.

And please feel free to share this link with anyone who you think would be a great mentor for these women around the world.

A sidebar trip to Bangalore

3 Dec

And so to Bangalore,  a short one hour flight from Goa but a world away in terms of weather (cloudy) and atmosphere (business like). I’ve been invited by the Confederation of Indian Industry’s Women Business Leaders’ Forum, on which I serve as a global advisor,  to participate in today’s workshop on mentoring (still a relatively new concept here) entitled “Mentoring as Power Advancement” – so here I am.

Very strange to be back in the corporate world again … other than for interviews,  it’s been over three months since I’ve had to prepare for a meeting (drafting notes etc) or get myself appropriately dressed.  And,  as I wasn’t expecting to be participating in this event,  I didn’t bring any proper clothes,  so I’ve had to improvise a bit,  as I doubt anyone would take me seriously as a potential “global mentor” if I rocked up at the Thomson-Reuters India HQ in my typical Goan attire: sarong, t-shirt, flip-flops. Luckily,  I brought a black silk dress out from England,  with the goal of getting it re-tailored to fit me. I’d had that done in my first week here,  to the tune of £4 and the loss of 4” from the waist and it now looks quite smart,  although my footwear (Boden sandals) is less than conventional.  However,  I’m comforting myself that I will probably be the only woman there not wearing a beautiful sari, who’s dressed in black – and in that case,  I’d stand out whatever I wore.

This is such a great topic for the workshop;  mentoring is still in its infancy here in corporate India and it’s a privilege to be invited to join in and reconnect with some of the wonderful women I met at last year’s NASSCOM event. It also ties in a little with my work in Goa; I hope that I am providing support and informal mentoring to the 50 girls aged between 7 and 13 who live at Rainbow House and who cannot have too many positive female role models to nurture them and show them the benefits of education and working hard.  I love this quotation from the current President, Pratibha Devisingh Patil, who reminds us that she is both a role model and a mentor to Indian women in saying that she is:

“ … deeply committed to the cause of education and would like to see every person, man and woman, boy and girl, be touched by the light of modern education. Empowerment of women is particularly important to me as I believe this leads to the empowerment of the nation.”

The CII have put me up in a lovely hotel (a comfortable bed! HOT water in the shower! How a month in a 1* hotel has changed me …) and I’m so appreciating the free and fast wireless connectivity in my hotel room that I haven’t even left it since I arrived last night.

But I must venture out now,  ahead of the workshop.

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