Hiiraan Online
Friday, September 26, 2014
A member of the Somali Canadian Youth Mentorship (SCYM) program took part in a Youth Mentoring Speaker Series event at Ottawa City Hall 110 Laurier Avenue West in the Andrew Haydon Council Chambers. It was a full house with over 160 people in attendance.
The event was organized by Crime Prevention Ottawa. SCYM was invited as part of a group of panellists to share their experiences and expertise on best practices for effective youth mentoring. Yacqub Jibril, a first year Health Sciences student spoke about the benefits of a culturally competent youth mentoring program.
Yacqub first thanked the organizers of the event, namely Sharmaarke Abdullahi for inviting him to share his experiences. He also thanked his two Mentors, Ahmed Dirie and Mohamed Ahmed for helping shape him to be the confident young man that he is today.
The others panellists spoke about approaches to mentoring, including formal and informal mentoring, different contexts in which mentoring programs operate (school, workplace, community setting, faith-based organizations, kids in care etc.) ongoing supervision and support for mentees, and finally how to evaluate mentoring programs.
SCYM is a volunteer based program that aims to connect young people with successful professionals and university students in Ottawa. SCYM's mission is to empower and open doors of opportunity for the Somali-Canadian youth. To learn more about SCYM, please visit www.scym.ca