What is this project about?
Following guidance from our 2023 Strategic Plan, we would like to establish a Youth Mentorship and Alumni Program for approximately 10 female-identified youth annually. We would like to offer mentorship to our children at Reaching for Rainbows by having the youth volunteers or past alumni provide guidance, support, and positive role modeling.
Mentorship can have numerous positive effects on participants. Mentorship offers young girls valuable support, supervision, and encouragement, leading to increased self-confidence, expanded opportunities, and improved well-being. The presence of a mentor can have a transformative effect on a girl's life, empowering her to reach her full potential. Female identifying mentors have a profound impact on young girls in by providing representation, fostering confidence, breaking gender norms, developing skills, nurturing leadership qualities, supporting through challenges, building networks, and advocating for gender equity. Their influence can shape young girls' journeys, empowering them to reach their full potential.
This program will be overseen by our Program Director who is familiar with the region and the systemic barriers faced by families. We aim to offer more wrap-around support, hope and opportunity to the participants and their families in our program.
Program Outcomes:
Improved Self-Esteem and Confidence: Girls should experience increased self-esteem and self-confidence, allowing them to face challenges with resilience and optimism.
Enhanced Relationship Skills: The girls should develop stronger interpersonal skills, including communication, empathy, and conflict resolution, leading to healthier relationships with peers and adults.
Sense of Belonging: Girls should feel a stronger sense of belonging and connection to their community, reducing feelings of isolation and loneliness.
Empowerment: As a result of mentorship and skill-building, girls should feel empowered to make informed decisions, set and achieve goals, and believe in their potential.
Positive Role Models: The mentor should serve as a positive female role model for the girls, inspiring them to aspire to greatness and become role models themselves in the future.
Community Impact: The project should have a broader impact on the community by fostering a culture of empowerment, inclusion, and support for young girls.
Long-term Benefits: Over time, the girls should carry the skills and values they have learned into adolescence and adulthood, contributing positively to society and acting as mentors for future generations.
Why is this project important to the community?
In the County Foundation's 2022 Vital Signs report, statistics reflect that 1 out of every 4 preschoolers in PEC demonstrated a vulnerability in one or more of the domains of early development, physical health and well-being.
Each year as we welcome our new girls, we see these statistics reflected in their lives. Our intake process is designed to capture as much information about our families as possible and to be able to provide the most individualized and comprehensive programming we can to the girls and their families. Our daily contact with both the girls and their families gives us unique insight into their lived experience in real time and we observe their challenges in our work with them continuously. The record-keeping, anecdotal reports, enrollment data and daily interactions provide us with a very personal status of each girl throughout her time in the program.
The ratio of staff and volunteers to each girl enables us to focus attentively to individual needs. The program is offered to families at no cost and not only offers programming designed to address the challenging circumstances that these girls face, but also to meet some of their very basic needs like nourishment through the daily snack time. The program's accreditation with the Ministry of Education enables many of the agency partnerships, such as Community Living and Prince Edwards and Lennox Social Services to work with us to meet the needs of these girls and their families. By providing transportation to the program space, the program reaches many girls who would not be able to attend without this added support.
