Foróige, the youth development organisation, has joined forces with GMIT to run a mentoring programme at the local third level college.
The initiative aims to help educationally disadvantaged students experience a more connected and successful college experience through creating supportive mentoring friendships on the campus.
The programme is designed to support students to settle into college. The mentors, who are based in GMIT, work in administration, academia, and student support. Their role is to support, guide, and befriend the students. They meet once a month during the academic year on campus grounds or via video call.
One of the mentored students praised the confidence-building aspect of the initiative. “The programme was great in helping me adapt to college life, understanding time management, setting study plans, and gaining confidence by having moral support. It really set me on the right track.”
The benefits of mentoring were outlined in a recent report by NUI Galway and Rethink Ireland. Entitled “Enabling an inclusive and equitable quality education for all”, it recommends the use of mentoring to help students progress and excel in third level education. The report also highlights the advantages of creating caring, less hierarchical relationships between staff and students. These may provide opportunities to develop trust and improve students’ wellbeing.
Debbie Molloy, the student affairs manager, at GMIT says the college is delighted to work with Foróige on this “exciting development”.
“Combining the expertise of staff working on the existing Big Brother, Big Sister programme with the enthusiasm of the staff and students in GMIT to develop a mentoring programme for higher education is mutually beneficial. In GMIT, both the mentors and the mentees are benefiting from the collaboration and we look forward to watching the programme develop in other higher education institutes next semester.”
Due to the success of the GMIT programme, the initiative received funding from the HSE and is now being extended to IT Sligo, Letterkenny IT, NUI Galway with the University of Sanctuary scholarship programme, and Waterford IT. The programme will support more than 60 students in the upcoming academic year.
