Why youth mentoring?

Too many young people do not have strong, lasting relationships with caring adults, which exposes them to serious risks. These young people are much more vulnerable to a whole range of difficulties, from academic failure to risky behavior (theft, harassment, suicide...). Research shows that resilient young people are systematically distinguished by the presence of a caring adult in their lives. Mentoring programs can therefore be a valuable tool for developing young people's interpersonal skills, promoting integration and giving them the tools and support they need.

Tools to support young people  

This mentoring program is a formal framework to help mentors and mentoring coordinators to foster mentoring processes with young people. For instance, mentors will be able to find suggestions on icebreakers to create a fun and informal environment for the first few sessions, as well as practical tools to use with the mentee to get to know each other, define their needs and set priorities for the different phases of mentoring.

This program, developed as part of the SportyMentor project, is now available on the project website in 4 languages (French, English, Portuguese and Romanian) !

SportyMentor: Why sport and mentoring ?

While mentoring relationships in sport are an established fact, there is a lack of research on the subject and few formal, structured mentoring programs in sport. This observation gave rise to the SportyMentor project. It offers a mentoring program specifically designed to help young people, aged 16 to 19, develop interpersonal skills, promote their eco-citizen commitment and provide them with the tools and support they need.

Concretely, SportyMentor is a program of personalized accompaniment of young people (mentees) by motivated volunteers with an interest in sport (mentors), who are willing to put their experience and knowledge at the service of the mentees' socio-professional integration. Together for a period of up to six months, they form a duo with the ultimate aim of helping the young person find a student job.