Peer Mentors

Mentors play a critical role in creating a safe and supportive environment for girls to build their leadership skills and receive feedback and support. Peer mentors are an important aspect of any mentoring programme and organisations can create formal and informal opportunities for coaches, peer leaders and even participants to support each other and share experiences. This type of mentorship can start early in a sport programme, on the field of play as well as off field. Peer leadership generally begins with an informal mentoring role. Later on, structured mentoring programmes give AGYW the opportunity to build a peer network that can guide them towards attaining short and long term goals and developing their leadership capacities. Peer mentoring creates sustainability, long after formal mentoring programmes are completed, and helps young women develop “the capacity to guide others in the achievement of a common goal”, as described in CARE’s 2008 publication, Power to Lead:  A Leadership Model for Adolescent Girls.^[1]

 Below is an example from Lydia Mahezo Kasiwa, Leadership Coordinator at Moving the Goalposts, of how peer mentorship programmes can create long lasting impact on organisations.