e-Mentoring Program Overview 

Hopeworks knows it is essential for a youth to develop and maintain positive, professional relationships with supportive, caring individuals.  In many ways, our trainees have a network of those kinds of relationships here at Hopeworks.  Our trainees help one another learn and grow, understand themselves in new, positive ways, and to solve problems collectively.  They form a community of care within our culture of hope.  Our e-Mentoring Program is a way of expanding that community of care and promoting our culture of hope.  Each trainee at Hopeworks has a mentor.

The e-Mentoring Program is an opportunity for Hopeworks to connect a youth with a friend of our organization.  Mentors are:

Mentors have many motivations.  Some see it as a way of giving back.  Some like to reach out to youth and help them understand more about themselves.  Others like to motivate youth and encourage them to pursue their education.  Many are interested in connecting youth with their particular professional field (e.g. GIS or web design).  Several of our mentors are interested in support the progress of young women and minorities.  A few see it as a way of making the Internet more human and interactive.  Still more find it as a way of giving back because an adult supported them when they were young.  Regardless of the reasons, mentors have a very important role to play at Hopeworks.

Although mentors come from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences, each shares the desire to help our trainees with their D.R.E.A.M.S. (Dynamic Realizable Efforts to Attain and Maintain Success).  Mentors do this by maintaining an e-mail correspondence with a trainee at least twice a week.  The conversations at times are as simple as asking how a youth is progressing or as involved as discussing parts of a trainee’s personal development plan.  No prior knowledge is required, only a willingness to share knowledge gained from life experiences and to encourage and support the limitless potential for progress we know is in each youth.  A mentoring relationship generally requires only the time to compose a thought-provoking e-mail or an engaged response to the questions asked by a trainee, probably 10 to 15 minutes a week.

Despite the short amount of time mentors spend on their e-mails, we have found the rewards to be great.  Many take it as a pleasant diversion from works.  Others like the opportunity to work with trainees and see them progress and develop.  Most enjoy in sharing our trainee’s enthusiasm for learning.  Some find they have competencies they didn’t know they had.  Quite a few recognize that they can play an important role in a trainee’s success.  We know that all of these things are true.

If you are interested in becoming an e-Mentor and have at least a half hour to read through the following material and complete our online application and agreement, please click here to begin the process.