Summary of Day 2 of the International Mentoring Days

01.12.2021

The Day 2 was the day of inspiration and reflection.

First, mentees joined the mentor participants. Joerg Schoolman, YBI mentoring expert from Germany moderated networking in mixed format.

After having known each other better, the participants listened to several inspiring stories told by mentoring matches at the session moderated by Irina Gorelova “Effectiveness and benefits of mentoring firsthand”.

The speakers frankly shared their stories and told about their expectations at the start of mentoring relationships and about the impact of mentoring on their businesses and life: a match from Voronezh Fedor Borisov (singing school “FaSol”) and his mentor Margarita Maslennikova, Maria Kuznetsova (Arts Traditions, Moscow) and Zhanna Trotsenko (a facility for the children with special needs ‘KaDiKu’, Nizhnevartovsk) – two other mentees of Tatiana Volchegorskaya, the day before announced YBI Mentor of the Year both for Russia and for Eastern Europe/Central Asia. The key learning for the participants was their understanding of mentoring in entrepreneurship as not just mentee’s business upgrade but significant changes in the outlook, perception of the world, of themselves and their dreams and abilities.

The agenda was highly topical and encouraged participants received a master class for mentors and mentees “Learning together through dialog and reflection” delivered by Auriel Majumdar, creative mentor, coach and supervisor from the UK. Her presentation was very creative, while proposed approaches to dialog and reflection offered much food for thought to all session participants and on both sides.

There is a good reason to call the Mentoring Days as International, and it is not just about the authors of master classes, internationally acknowledged experts, but the possibility to exchange experience with colleagues from other countries, to learn how they implement mentoring programmes at home and to get inspired by their success stories.

This time we learnt the best international mentoring practices from Sweden and India.

The experience with mentoring programmes in Sweden was presented by Therese Kaeck, Head of Mentoring at NyföretagarCentrum, YBI member and YBR partner. Caxton Njuki (CAxton Sports Management), Mentor of the Year for Sweden and Europe, and his mentee Jessika Sillenpää (Jessikasstory) shared their mentoring relationship experience.

In India, the mentoring programmes are being implemented by a partner organization BYST, for 30 years like in Sweden. Aruna Vinodh, who came in Russia for the VII Mentoring Days, BYST Director, together with Naina Shah, mentor, and Mohammed Bilal, mentee and entrepreneur, spoke about mentoring practices in their country.

Boris Tkachenko, founder of the Mentoring Institute and YBR, and John Cull, who established mentoring at YBI, opened and summarized the results of the Days 1 and 2. Since mentors and mentees finished their participation at the event, John wished them success in business and improved mindful mentoring relationships. Boris reminded mentoring programme managers from Russian regions and from other countries to come back on Day 3 with the information on the challenges they are facing while implementing mentoring programmes, since Day 3 was intended for active and future mentoring programme facilitators.

Day 2 https://youtu.be/fh3njde0U5Q