MentorPower - February 2024 in Malta

From the 31st of January to the 5th of February, Friends of Don Bosco in Malta have organised a training course on mentoring targeting youth workers from all over Europe and even Aruba. The aim was to give more tools and a theory base for youth workers to improve their mentoring skills and their capacities in working with children and young people.

IT IS ALL ABOUT TRUST!
My name is Milena, I'm 19 years old, from Germany and I had the chance to take part in my first Erasmus+ training course from 1st to 4th February in Malta! For four days, we - a group of 28 youth workers from Malta, Spain, Aruba, Slovakia, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany – went through various sessions animated by Friends of Don Bosco workers on the topic of “Mentor Power – Mentoring young disadvantaged people”.

As a working basis, we were given theoretical sessions by a psychotherapist, which helped us understand trauma and the psychosocial background of the life situations many of our mentees find themselves in. Throughout the training course, the participants got to know methods and tools to practice mentoring with disadvantaged young people as a way to support them and help them to lead an independent, healthy life. Therefore, we all participated in (sometimes quite funny) hands-on activities provided by experienced mentors to practice skills on building a mentoring relationship. Further, the training course encouraged the youth workers to always keep in mind the importance of not only constant self-reflection, but also supervision in order to manage one’s resources, setting up and being aware of boundaries and to prevent from transferring a mentee's trauma and daily struggles to the mentor's personal life.
Exchanging within such a multicultural and diverse group was very enriching and our theory, that mentoring is all about trust clearly became visible in the great atmosphere that we quickly built by (guess what?) trust.
Also Malta's landscapes and weather were a great added bonus compared to what the weather has lately been like in Germany... (Jumping into the cold sea was a must do every day! ;)) I return with great gratitude for the moments shared and the confidence to reach out to needy young people who require a youth work intervention to support them in their journey toward social inclusion! What a great experience! - I can’t wait to be part of the next training course :) !

Thank you Milena for sharing your experience!

Auberie, staff member of DBYN, has also participated in this training course. Here's her testimony.
I have had the pleasure to participate in this training course organised by Friends of Don Bosco in Malta with participants from various different paths, all interested in the topic of mentoring and wanting to improve their skills for a better accompaniment of young people.
I liked how the training was organised: we have been given a lot of theoritical background but also space to reflect on both the learning and past experiences in our work or volunteering. The diversity of the participants was also something that was enriching. We could build on all of our collective experiences and learn from each other. Some had already some mentoring experience, we had participants active in youth work, others in teaching, some in policy and we were all there to improve and know more for the benefit of the young people we are with.
The trainers and experts gave us a lot of input on trauma, attachment theory but also the position of the mentor. We reflected a lot on the qualities of a good mentor. We also got tools to reflect on our personal life that we can also use with our mentees.
I was very happy to be there and am grateful for the knowledge this gives me.