THE START OF MENTOR TOGETHER IS A STORY THAT REAFFIRMS THE POWER OF MENTORSHIP
The start of Mentor Together is a story that reaffirms the power of mentorship. As a soon-to-be college graduate, Arundhuti Gupta had several ideas about how she could make a difference in her city, but needed an initial push and a safe space to explore her abilities. Mentorship she accessed fortuitously helped her get started and discover how empowering it felt to work with young people and help them discover their potential. She was at the start of a career in Finance but chose instead to pay forward the mentorship she had received. She became a social entrepreneur to setup a mentoring movement for India, and Mentor Together was born in November 2009. Arundhuti is a globally recognised social entrepreneur: an Ashoka Fellow, a Brookings Echidna Global Scholar, a Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow, amongst many others honours.
Mentor Together has pioneered the field of formal youth mentoring in India, with numerous publications and reports, on the role of mentoring in supporting the lives of young people across India. In our programs, mentors and mentees use our uniquely designed evidence-based mentoring activities. We design processes that support a mentor and mentee from the time they onboard to become alumni, with a focus on incorporating effective mentoring practices. We have also designed our own technology platform - the Mentor To Go app - to connect mentors and mentees across the country.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
There has been a phenomenal increase in the number of students in tertiary education. Today, there are close to 40 million young people studying in Universities across India, with women representing an equal share of this number. This number will only grow as our National Education Policy has set a goal of increasing enrollment in tertiary education from 33% to 50% in the next 10 years.
Yet, when we look at what happens after students graduate, two things stand out: first, that almost 50% of all graduates are not found employable, and second, only 30% of the women with tertiary education are active in the workforce.
We see 3 key underlying root causes for this problem:
First: the skill deficit: College curriculums rarely address the skills employers value most, like problem-solving, self-management, and working with people. These types of 21st-century skills are also not built by having teachers speak about them in a classroom.
Second: the network gap: Our networks shape the information we access, the role models we learn from, and the opportunities we get. For most young people, especially young women, their professional networks are very small, and consequently their aspirations and opportunities are also limited.
And third, restrictive social and gender norms: a main contributing factor for young women not entering or sustaining in the workforce are existing social and gender norms on the role of women as family caretakers, especially when they marry or start families.
Solution
How do we solve this complex and entrenched inequality of opportunity? No single intervention can be a silver bullet. However there are two aspects central to mentorship, that make us believe in the profound impact it can have on the lives of young people.
The power of life skills or non-cognitive skills
Researchers have found that life skills like time management, motivation and perseverance are highly predictive of social behaviours and economic outcomes of young people. How do young people build these life skills?Adolescents especially learn such skills through observation and inference from adults can who demonstrate such skills and who provide them opportunities to build such skills in themselves. This is where mentorship is a vital intervention in the lives of adolescents.
The power of social networks
A sociologist in 1976 posited that any person looking to mobilize resources, move upwards and gain social mobility, needs to be present in a rich and diverse network, where she/he is connected to multiple nodes of information and opportunity. For many young people, their natural networks are small and limited in scope. Mentorship provides a gateway to connect to the world at large, through the networks of accomplished mentors.
Our Team
Anuja Thomas
Program Coordinator
Arundhuti Gupta
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Archana Chavan
Associate Director - Operations
Falak Sajid
Program Manager
Santosh Goud
Program Manager
Sunitha Viswanathan
Trustee; Partner - Kae Capital
Srikrishna Ramamoorthy
Managing Trustee; Partner, Unitus Seed Fund
Dinesh Pulla
Program Coordinator
Mayuri Khunjare
Junior Mentee Manager
Nehal Agrawal
Program Coordinator
Rahul Sable
Research Lead
Jean P Boddu
Associate Director - Operations
Aastha Dalal
Program Coordinator
Madhura Kamat
Program Manager
Vijay Gowda
Junior Mentee Manager
Shruthilayaa S
Program Coordinator
Abhilasha Tirkey
Program Coordinator
Asmin Hussain
HR Manager
Anuja Thomas
Program Coordinator
Ashitha Paul
Program Coordinator
Bhasker Sharma
Consultant - Technology & Partnerships
Mannika Kandhari
Program Manager
Prerana Chidanand
Program Coordinator
"Mentor Together's programmes are designed to create impact. Mentor and mentee screening and matching are carefully done. We have a matching algorithm, which was developed in partnership with Thoughtworks Bangalore, where we look at 13 different aspects where mentors and mentees may match like common hobbies, career interests, personality traits and languages."
"The density and increasing popularity of mentoring organizations is indeed heartening, helping to push this niche field forward," says Arundhuti Gupta, who started India's first mentoring program, Mentor Together (MT) in 2010. Everybody is focusing on different pieces of the puzzle, working with different age groups, geographies and lessons."
“The hand-holding goes far beyond studies as well: "I tell Kavya about my traumas, troubles and doubts and she listens patiently to everything and never judges me on the basis of such information. Instead she asks me questions and in the process of answering her questions about my feelings I find my answers on my own. I am ever so grateful for her in my life. Whatever happens, whoever leaves me, I know she'll always be there," added Valli.”
"Altering the choices of India's disadvantaged youth also requires an expansion of their social networks. Their communities have few role models who can guide the next generation with professional advice. Mentorship has been a part of urban youth community programmes around the world for nearly a century, but is a fairly new intervention with children and youth in India. When Arundhuti Gupta launched Mentor Together in 2009, there were only a couple similar programmes in the country."
"Mentor Together's programmes are designed to create impact. Mentor and mentee screening and matching are carefully done. We have a matching algorithm, which was developed in partnership with Thoughtworks Bangalore, where we look at 13 different aspects where mentors and mentees may match like common hobbies, career interests, personality traits and languages."
"The density and increasing popularity of mentoring organizations is indeed heartening, helping to push this niche field forward," says Arundhuti Gupta, who started India's first mentoring program, Mentor Together (MT) in 2010. Everybody is focusing on different pieces of the puzzle, working with different age groups, geographies and lessons."
“The hand-holding goes far beyond studies as well: "I tell Kavya about my traumas, troubles and doubts and she listens patiently to everything and never judges me on the basis of such information. Instead she asks me questions and in the process of answering her questions about my feelings I find my answers on my own. I am ever so grateful for her in my life. Whatever happens, whoever leaves me, I know she'll always be there," added Valli.”
"Altering the choices of India's disadvantaged youth also requires an expansion of their social networks. Their communities have few role models who can guide the next generation with professional advice. Mentorship has been a part of urban youth community programmes around the world for nearly a century, but is a fairly new intervention with children and youth in India. When Arundhuti Gupta launched Mentor Together in 2009, there were only a couple similar programmes in the country."
