Mentoring opportunities in Notre Dame

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/02/2021 (848 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While community outreach activities continue to be disrupted by COVID-19, we are excited to announce that we recently began setting up youth mentorships that virtually link youth with professionals over Zoom.

So far, we’ve set up three first-year University of Manitoba students – all graduates of Daniel McIntyre Collegiate – with mentors. The students expressed interest in medicine, psychiatry, psychology, addictions, mental health and youth so we found mentors who reflected these interests.

The mentors are health professionals, including a doctor in residence, a psychiatric nurse who specializes in working with youth and addictions, and a forensic psychologist who also specializes in working with youth.

The mentors share the education and career paths they took and what their day-to-day work is like. All three students are young Filipina women and their mentors also come from similar ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. This matching was done by design and allowed for more personal, in-depth exchanges between students and mentors as they explored topics like family, cultural expectations, and ways to find work and other opportunities to finance their university degrees.

It’s important to note that this program was initiated by the students themselves who told me they would like to become doctors or researchers one day but didn’t know how to begin and don’t have anyone around them who work in these fields.

Their families were also concerned about education expenses due to financial constraints and encouraged the students to pursue careers with more job availability, such as becoming nurses or health-care aides.

Filipino community activists and researchers have identified a concerning trend that second-generation Filipino immigrant youth have lower levels of post-secondary educational attainment than their parents.

This is in stark contrast to other second-generation immigrant youth who come to Canada and are able to attain higher levels of education than their parents.

All folks who make the life-changing decision to make Canada and Manitoba their home make these sacrifices in hopes of a better life, if not for them then for their children. If their children are, for a myriad of reasons, unable to get an education or work opportunities, many immigrants are left wondering what the sacrifice was for.

Mentoring can provide valuable support for students at critical points in their lives.

I thank these three young women for approaching me with their concerns regarding their education and career paths. Our office will endeavour to create more mentorship opportunities for other youth in Notre Dame.

Please feel free to contact our office if you or someone you know is interested in participating in a mentorship at 204-788-0800 or by emailing malaya.marcelino@yourmanitoba.ca