Mentorship and Coaching

This program is about making sure that girls and boys in communities where GF operates have a structured system of support to find their life meaning, deal with issues at  home and at school and explore their talents and gifts and work towards being the best they can be. 

It is important because 12  years of  experience (2013-2024) supporting girls and boys from disadvantaged backgrounds has generated some important lessons:

1. These children need more than just financial support. Some of the boys and girls come from such dysfunctional families that helping with pay school fees alone is not enough. 
2. GF cannot and should not replace the role of children's kin, family and communities. While most families of the children GF has supported in the past were genuinely needy, there are cases of irresponsibility and GF support risked being seen as encouraging that
3. Targeting a few boys and girls in schools makes it public (through monitoring visits etc) that the children are sponsored. GF like many other sponsors may be exposing these children to further pyschological trauma, espcially when any program involves calling out the children from among thier peers.

Boys and girls in public primary and seconday schools. 

Our main partners are the schools, teachers, guardians and community-based organisations asn wel as youth from the communities who are able and willing to act as mentors and role models for the boys and girls

• We work with individuals and insitutitons with expertise on children matters to train young men and women willing to be mentors and role models.  
• After training, we match each mentor with at least 3 boys or girls depending on interests, background and other considerations.
• We provide each boy and girl with a diary for helping them structure their goals and document thier experiences. 
• We work with CBOs that closely coordinate with schools, parents, children and the mentors, with strick adherence to procedures for hndling children. The CBOs organise activities at school and/or GF facilities. All engagement between mentors and the children and carried out during these organised events

The program was designed in January 2025 as a consolidation of the work that GF has been doing in supporting individual disadvangated boys and girls access education and young men and women gain skills. We shall learn in the coming months how the redesigned program is working

We shall listen to stakeholders on what is working and what need to be adjusted and make changes as appropriate

We shall report in the coming months