Observations and Reflections from Mentoring Training - 27 March 2010

Volunteers in the Making Trax Mentoring Program span the breadth of the twentieth century’s generational ranges. Assuming my guess of age is somewhat accurate; we come from the Greatest Generation (G.I. Generation)/Silent Generation, Baby Boomers Generation, Generation X and Generation Y (Generation, List of Generations in the Western World, 2010).

Notwithstanding age, each mentor brings a vast wealth of life, work and personal experience to the program. From the stories shared in the training session, I hear inner selves that identify with words such as orphan, recovered alcoholic, Koori youth worker/integration aide, personal assistant/holistic counsellor, and employment officer. I believe that each mentor yearns to assist the Making Trax mentees to find their purpose in life and reach their own potential.

Our generations often find contemporary youth to be unprecedented, alien and a generation who ‘want everything now’. Perhaps this is due to being a part of the digital age from conception? Adolescence brings many changes to a child’s world, and if youth are unable to transform in a safe, secure and non-threatening environment, risk taking behaviour increases.

A challenge youth face is to engage in positive risk taking in real time in the real world. It could be said that this is due to the overly cautious society that we live in; public liability insurance and corporate risk management strategies often give youth programs a constraining framework to operate within.

The notion of the village has changed; youth are generally not as connected to elders and therefore basic life skills and manual, traditional ways of doing everyday jobs are being lost. Disadvantaged youth are therefore unable to learn the basic life skills like cooking, washing clothes, mowing the lawns, or sewing because their parents, for one reason or another, may not have the capacity to teach them. “Can communities and society be strong if our children and young people are not?” (Stanley, 2003).

Fortunately, in East Gippsland, youth have been given a chance to engage with adults who care about the collective. Youth participating in the Making Trax Program are able to learn valuable life skills; identify their purpose in life; build their self-esteem; take risks in a safe environment; and grow, learn, develop and have fun.

Works Cited
Generation, List of Generations in the Western World. (2010, March 24). Retrieved March 27, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation#Western_world

Stanley, F. (2003, April 8). Communities in Control Speeches, It takes a village to raise a child. Retrieved March 27, 2010, from Our Community: http://www.ourcommunity.com.au/files/fiona_stanley_speech.pdf