Mentor Training Programme in Mombasa

A two-and-a-half-day Mentor Development Program was held in Mombasa organised by the Capacity Building Group. The core focus of the program was to have a clear and deeper understanding of:

- The mentoring process

- Mentor and mentee relationship

- Importance of reflective practice in the mentoring practice

The participants were exposed to the Egan’s Skilled Helper Model for mentoring and the core focus was practice, practice and practice. The Egan’s model has three basic stages and each participant went through practicing those three stages with others. Equal opportunity was given to all for being a mentor and a mentee. For many of the participants this was an enrichment of some of the skills learnt in Leadership Development Program and it was a good refresher.

The resources used during the program were most appropriate and each participant was given their own personal book " Coaching and Mentoring at Work" by Mary Connor and Julia Pokora. The entire experience was very powerful for the group as each one got ample opportunity for practicing the skills. The debriefing sessions, feedback to individuals, pairs and groups helped everyone to improve. The reflective diary was also very helpful for recording and sharing reflections.

The experience was just awesome and it is highly recommended that more programs like this be organized to take the LDP graduates to another level of excellence.

Written by Minhas Tejani