Holistic Development

Mentorship Programme

Started in 2008

The students we support often have parents who are poor, overworked and not very well educated. As such, a large number of these students are unable to cope with the challenges that school life puts before them. Without proper guidance, their performance begins to falter and a steady number of them drop out of school.

Monitoring and helping students in need of attention

Our Mentorship Programme serves to reduce school dropouts by:

Helping students gain self confidence and develop a positive attitude
Keeping students focused on their education and personal development

How the mentoring works

Mentorship is compulsory for all students from the 8th standard to 12th standard, whose education is covered by Udhavum Ullangal.
Each student is assigned a mentor whom he/she meets on the first Sunday of every month for an informal discussion.
At these mentorship sessions, the mentor aims to find out about how the last month has been for the child. By asking simple questions, with follow-up questions based on the answers received, the mentor can get a fair idea about any problems the child is facing.
He/she can then evolve appropriate solutions for the problem. For example, if the child has issues understanding a subject in school, tuition can be organized and paid for. In one instance a child’s father was coming home drunk every day and beating the mother. As a result the child just could not concentrate on studying. When his mentor discovered this, he encouraged him to spend a portion of every evening studying in our office. This shielded the boy from the violence and gave him a chance to keep up with school work.
Accurate records are maintained for each child, documenting basic health, family circumstances, academic performance, extra-curricular activities, future goals (that the child is encouraged to set), and his/her mentor’s comments.
Every two months or so we organize special education programmes for the children, to teach them basic computer skills, spoken English, and help develop their personalities.

Benefits of mentorship

The programme has seen some encouraging results:

The children become more confident and begin to share their problems. After four or five sessions even the most reserved of them start opening up.
They are able to maintain a good academic record and the goal setting exercises they invest in often result in an improved performance over time.
The children are able to discuss anything that is bothering them and important issues can be addressed. For example, girls who have come of age can be taught about the changes they are going through as well as newly relevant issues of personal hygiene. This information is not something the girls would have received at home.

Expanding the programme

The Mentorship Programme has been a huge success, with lots of positive feedback from children and parents alike. As such, we would like to expand the reach of the programme, providing a mentor for all the children we support. This would include child labourers in Sivakasi, who we have recently begun to help.