When I ask you to become someone’s mentor you will almost certainly know what I am asking you to do. Right?

Well, when we started our Mentoring Programme where experienced librarians help a brand new library get the most of our project as quickly as possible, they all agreed. Eagerly. But in reality and unbeknown to us, none of our wonderful would-be-Mentors had a clue what that means.

Nevertheless, under the guidance of Jay, our Project Officer, they set off to ‘do their thing’ at our newest library ‘Kombani’. They arrived and all wondered why they are there… Until Jay and Omar, our Arts & Crafts Leader, sprung to action. 

“this is what we will do… We will help you run an Arts class and we will answer any questions you might have.” Jay said. Omar, knew exactly where to start, while the rest took a little bit longer. In the end though, they both learnt a lot and more importantly, they have enjoyed the experience. 

A lesson for us though: get some sort of guidance for our Mentors!