Mentoring hubs in Mentoring Across Borders

The Mentoring Across Borders (MAB) project aims to develop mentoring hubs, which are organisations where older volunteers decide to put their skills at the service of younger people, from a transnational point of view. They can be of two types:

• Experienced – already participating in previous local, national and European projects and already experimenting with mentoring methodologies from which MAB is derived – are the ones triggering the mentoring process.
• Newcomers are organisations aspiring to learn and apply new methods of intergenerational mentoring, thanks to the support of other experienced organisations. As regards the MAB project, they are mainly based in Eastern European countries.

To become a Mentoring hub in Mentoring Across Borders, they need to meet specific criteria: 

1. A non-profit organisation status (preferable but not necessary);
2. Previous experience in organising intergenerational mentoring initiatives, even on a small scale (preferable but not necessary);
3. The will to grow and develop the previous mentoring experience, potentially making it a large-scale one, or the will to start mentoring initiatives;
4. The ability to work with several different generations (younger and older people), demonstrating the ability to gather the needs, aspirations, features, and skills of each generation, as well as to harmonise them to create an effective synergy work;
5. Having a vision and mission-oriented towards generating social impact;
6. A minimum level of defined internal organisation, not necessarily vertical and rigidly hierarchical, but where an outline organisation chart of the division of labour and competencies can be identified;
7. Shared management principles oriented towards sustainability and transparency;
8. A membership base of people who have or have had active roles in the world of vocational training or work in general;
9. Some members with basic computer skills, to be able to enter data and operate on a web platform dedicated to matching mentors and mentees;
10. Previous experience at the European and international level, e.g. gained through participation in previous European projects or missions abroad (preferable but not necessary);
11. Presence of members who have work or volunteering experience abroad in their CVs (preferable but not necessary);
12. The willingness to open up to a new dimension that is no longer only strictly local or national, if the organisation’s past is lacking in activities at a European level. The potential mentoring hub must therefore become attractive to new members who can count on CVs of a more international nature. The MAB methodology envisages involvement at a transnational level.

Nine organisations are already acting as mentoring hubs in the Mentoring Across Borders project: 50plus Hellas (Greece), SES (Germany), Seniores Italia Lazio OdV (Italy), Volontari Senior Professionali ODV (Italy), Cyprus Third Age Observatory (Cyprus), ZNANIE (Bulgaria), Önkéntes Központ Alapítvány (Hungary), Stowarzyszenie Centrum Wolontariatu (Poland), AULEDA – Local Economic Development Agency (Albania). They are providing services related to active ageing and volunteerism in their countries, with long experience in organizing and successfully implementing similar activities.

If you’re interested to also become a mentoring hub, please contact info@eumentoring.eu.