Last April I was
invited to attend debates and discussions on this very exciting idea of forming
an advisory women's group matching mentors with mentees in the UAE. These projected assignments will certainly be much better assisted through well devised and
well constructed business coaching and career mentoring programmes.
Upon gathering few
enthusiastic professional business savvy ladies, about ten of us all in all, our meeting was planned to
convene at a later date in order to review, discuss and debate few ideas on how
best to serve the mentor / mentee relationships within a much needed manageable
ideal and well founded schemes.
It was important to
see how we could combine a volunteering programme of rallying the willing
cooperation of more senior, experienced and professional business ladies,
coming to the fore in order to act as mentors, professional coach and advisors
to some of these young graduates in need of a back up scheme to support their
academic aspirations into more business and professional oriented
fulfilment.
Many of these young
and energetic graduates simply get stuck at the university gates. Moving
forward is not easy when you are in your early twenties, still trying to see
how you could fit in and survive in business, barely ready to take over, assume career
responsibilities and formal duties in a heavy handed manner!
The scheme was just
an idea, still at the very inception phase and the couple of ladies founders
were gathering momentous along market intelligence into how best to go about it
and will their be enough individual willingness, institutional support for
funding, and mostly capable professionals to act as mentors, happy to provide
free services, allocating more time to build a solid, trusted and reliable mentor
/ mentee relationships for the huge tasks ahead.
We had a great and
successful meeting, we all explored various cultural and educational avenues,
along business considerations and family demands with the impact of local
traditions and acceptable customs and country norms. We were foreign ladies wanting to assist the
local communities and youth support needs.
I certainly felt it was a brilliant initiative and wished the
organisers the very best in their commendable mission. In fact, I was asked for
a short recorded interview, expressing my feelings on the matter, which naturally I
obliged with pleasure, despite some slight interferences with all the ladies still in full discussions
in the background! (Pls see relevant podcasts at the end)
I believe it was a
very constructive forum, and was pleased later on to hear from the organisers
that their small pilot study, including our filmed discussions and recorded
forum feedback for their relevant bid to be sponsoring such a commendable
undertaking has been granted with an award for their CSR category of 2013 Awards!
Women like men,
need to be prepared for the task at hand. Many young female graduates
starting business lead careers, as well as female business entrepreneurs have
expressed ongoing and in fact growing confidence in their abilities to
influence business and be the makers and shakers of their times, moving forward
from the local restrictive scenes and into the global open investment medium,
benefitting their communities along the way, and establishing themselves as strong supporters and stout allies to the proud ideals of their own nation.
These have spurred me further to the importance and need of fulfilling my own aspirations in building up on my intended professional goals to specialise in mentoring and career coaching, helping others achieve their own life purpose and professional success, social as well as their career fulfilment.
Linda's Mentoring Pilot Forum - Part 1 (Podcast)
Linda's Mentoring Pilot Forum / My Interview - Part 2 (Podcast)
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