Could Mentoring be an option for you?

Big Brothers Big Sisters is a Mentoring platform to support our youth who could benefit from having a supportive, interested adult in their lives. We currently have over 150 Mentors matched with young people (Mentees) aged from of 6-12 upwards which is fabulous, but unfortunately, we have 63 young people we don’t have Mentors for. The young people are referred to us by their parents or caregivers and after our highly trained and professional Mentor Coordinators have met with the family and Mentors, work begins to find the perfect match! However, to do this we need many more available Mentors, particularly men. There are multiple ways you can be a Mentor, with different time commitments, and from all the research out there, being in a Mentoring relationship has positive outcomes for all involved, an absolute win-win!

Option 1 – Visit your Mentee at their school for an hour a week during the school term and spend some time on activities you both decide would be fun, maybe puzzles, kicking a ball, cooking – that’s where our Coordinators make their magic happen in pairing you with a Mentee with similar interests. This is School Based Mentoring.

Option 2 – Spend between 1-4 hours, once a week, doing community-based activities with your Mentee, perhaps going to the beach, watching their sports game or visiting a park, it’s up to you guys each week! And again, our Coordinators put great care into the matches they make so you know you and your Mentee will get off to a flying start! This is Community Based Mentoring. If either of these appeal to you, we would absolutely love to hear from you and have a no-obligation chat to see if Mentoring is something you could offer to a keen young person from our region. Our goal is to operate the programme with no wait list. The young people come to us eager and ready for a Big Brother/Big Sister and it can be disheartening for them to be faced with a long wait. And if time is not on your side but you would still like to support our organisation in some way, we have…

Option 3 – Become a Match Sponsor. For our coordinators to supervise the Mentor/Mentee matches (ensuring great matches, safety and engagement), costs $2000.00 per year. We have some outstanding people and businesses who are already supporting our matches but we most definitely need more! Perhaps even join together with some friends, your neighbours or work colleagues and collectively become a Match Sponsor - there are some great friendships and bonds being built through mentoring, get amongst it any way you can! Contact us at nelson@bbbs.nz for more information.