Mentorpalooza!

AGM | Mentorpalooza September 19, 2012

Skills for Change will hold its annual general meeting on September 19th. This year's AGM is a lead-in to Mentorpalooza! a recognition of the important contributions of our SfC Mentors, whose expertise and commitment impact Skills for Change and support the success of thousands of individuals and families. In addition to a special celebration of our mentors we will share once again the films of survival, connectedness, adaptation,acceptance and belonging  created for our Pioneers for Change fundraising gala.

We look forward to a chance to celebrate and thank our mentors for helping us build a Canada where every immigrant succeeds. 

For event details and more information please visit:

http://www.skillsforchange.org/agm_mentorpalooza_2012/

Event photos!

Mentoring in the global village

August 18, 2011. Opening remarks by Skills for Change executive director, Cheryl May.

The term mentor comes from Homer’s Iliad, written in 8^th century BCE. In this epic poem, Homer leaves his son to the care of “Mentor” while he goes off to fight the Trojan War. Mentoring is sure to be a practice that goes back much further than the ancient Greeks: it is a practice that is part of human nature – to help and to share wisdom and experience.

Charge forward to 1968. Marshall McLuhan has the prescience to see the “global village” in a world yet to be changed by the Internet. The global village came from McLuhan’s observation that an electronic nervous system was rapidly integrating the planet.

We’ve arrived. Far from a world of harmony, McLulan described the global village as “both as wide as the planet and as small as a little town where everybody is poking their nose into everyone else’s business”. So while the global village is rich and diversity, we need to develop ways to support a greater understanding of each other and our culture and context. Learning happens continuously, and often in an accelerated way, throughout one’s lifetime – and it happens through a variety of channels – interpersonal, television, and of course, the internet. Wisdom is no longer synonymous with age.

The ancient practice of mentoring is more important than ever. It is two-way learning experience that shares knowledge and experience, and it is being reconfigured in a multitude of extraordinary ways. Today we will explore how we are remixing the mentor role – speed mentoring, peer mentoring, cross border mentoring to name a few – and with a nod to the extraordinary Mr. McLuhan on the centenary of his birth – the role of e-mentoring in the global village he so aptly prophesized. 

Thanks for being a part of Mentorpalooza!

We hope you had a great time at Mentorpalooza! Event photos for you to view and share with others will be posted shortly. In the meantime, check out the event's Twitter feed below. 

Follow us on Twitter: @skillsforchange 

 

Chronus | e-mentoring

Chronus helps organizations create hi-impact, cost-effective mentoring programs. Our web-based software service combines program management, mentor-mentee matching, e-mentoring, and social learning functionality into a dynamic online “web 2.0” mentoring program environment. Chronus supports a wide range of mentoring formats and is used by leading corporations, universities, professional associations and non-profits.

Skills for Change is launching e-mentoring in September, with the Chronus application as the platform for this new initiative. Mentoring for Change lead, Oliver Pryce, will participate in the sessions to answer questions about how we chose Chronus and why we are moving to e-mentoring to support our program goals.

 

Colette Delaney | Master of Ceremonies

We are pleased to announce Colette Delaney as the evening's Master of Ceremonies. Colette is a Senior Vice President at CIBC, overseeing the bank’s key retail product lines including mortgages, lending, insurance and deposits. She has over 25 years experience in the Financial Services sector in three countries - the UK, US and Canada.

Colette places a strong emphasis on mentoring as both a current volunteer mentor for Skills for Change and through her involvement in various mentoring initiatives, both with CIBC and on a personal basis.

She graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in Modern Languages and holds an MBA from City University Business School in London.  She is also an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in the UK.

 

The countdown is on!

 

The Chang School, Ryerson University | mentoring marketplace: intercultural communication for the Canadian workplace

Adapting to the workplace culture in a company is essential to ensuring the right "fit" and to building a successful career. Beyond the technical and educational skills, the ability to adapt to a culturally diverse workplace requires effective communication and soft skills. These include such qualities as initiative, leadership, integrity, ethical behaviour, information analysis, and motivation.

In response to this need, Ryerson University’s G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education introduces the Intercultural Communication for the Canadian Workplace Training Program. As an online tool to help newcomer mentees adapt to workplace cultures and empower mentors to better understand how to support their mentees, this unique offering provides Canadian and internationally trained professionals with the soft skills needed in today’s workplace. Through this interactive, fully online, and modular training program, learners build valuable communication, social, and self-management skills. The training program uses a wide range of interactive learning techniques, including video simulations, commentaries, and feedback comments.

The program covers the following areas:

• Cultural awareness
• Interpersonal communication
• Organizational awareness
• Networking and creating visibility
• Relationship and client-focused communication
• Relationship management in cross-cultural teams

ACCES | mentoring marketplace: speed mentoring

Speed Mentoring® allows new Canadians to meet face-to-face with professionals who can provide them with advice, resume coaching, interviewing strategies, and valuable tips on how to advance their careers in Canada. These impactful conversations inspire job seekers and offer them the opportunity to get informed and connected. Speed Mentoring also benefits employers by showcasing the remarkable talent that newcomers are bringing to our workforce.

Speed Mentoring involves a group of employees (mentors) from a leading company meeting with new Canadian job seekers (mentees).  Participants meet one-to-one for 10-minutes, then a bell rings and the mentee moves to the next mentor.

Since 2006, Speed Mentoring has helped more than 2,000 professional newcomers expand their network and more than 100 companies have participated in Speed Mentoring. Speed Mentoring has been acknowledged in the Globe and Mail as a creative recruitment strategy, and the Speed Mentoring concept received a Minister’s Award for Excellence in Innovation.

As part of this interactive discussion, participants will:

• Participate in a live Speed Mentoring demonstration
• Gain an understanding of how Speed Mentoring works and how to measure success
• Learn how to become licensed to deliver Speed Mentoring events

Community MicroSkills Development Centre | mentoring marketplace

Community MicroSkills Development Centre is a non-profit organization that has served communities in Toronto and surrounding areas since 1984. MicroSkills provides settlement, employment, and self-employment services to individuals, giving priority to immigrants, youth, racialized minorities and women with low income.

The programs in MicroSkills' key service areas help its client community to achieve economic self-sufficiency, to participate actively in community life, and to meaningfully contribute within their communities and Canada at-large.

MicroSkills programs focus on developing clients' skills, increasing their information base, and facilitating opportunities for them to transfer their skills and knowledge into the Canadian workforce.

In addition, MicroSkills' Newcomer Services assists individuals to integrate socially and economically into Canadian society. Immigrants, refugees, recent arrivals to Canada and longer-term residents can access these comprehensive services at multiple locations to support their efforts to participate fully in their new surroundings.

MicroSkills believes in a person's potential to actively shape her/his life and community.

Toronto and Region Conservation | mentoring marketplace: mentoring to placement


We are pleased to announce the Toronto and Region Conservation's (TRCA) participation as a presenter in the Mentoring Marketplace. TRCA works with its partners to ensure The Living City is built on a natural foundation of healthy rivers and shorelines, greenspace and biodiversity and sustainable communities. In 2009, TRCA launched the Mentoring to Placement (M2P) for Environmental Professionals Program. The M2P Program is an Ontario bridge training program that opens the door to employment opportunities for 40 internationally trained environmental professionals in the fields of planning, ecology and green building technologies. 

The program is led by TRCA through its Environmental Volunteer Network (EVN) and offers three main components: a mentorship, technical and soft skills workshops, and a three to 12 month paid work placement with a host organization. Since 2002, TRCA has been working to assist thousands of newcomers arriving in Toronto each year to adjust to a new country and access the environmental sector through a variety of programs including the TRCA's Professional Access and Integration Enhancement Program for Engineers and Geoscientists and the EVN.