Research has long demonstrated that youth benefit from close, caring relationships with adults who serve as positive role models. Today, 8.5 million youth continue to lack supportive, sustained relationships with caring adults. Mentoring—which matches youth or “mentees” with responsible, caring “mentors,” usually adults—has been growing in popularity as both a prevention and intervention strategy over the past decades. Mentoring provides youth with mentors who can develop an emotional bond with the mentee, have greater experience than the mentee, and can provide support, guidance, and opportunities to help youth succeed in life and meet their goals. Mentoring relationships can be formal or informal with substantial variation, but the essential components include creating caring, empathetic, consistent, and long-lasting relationships, often with some combination of role modeling, teaching, and advising.

The FKF mentorship programme is aimed at supporting young people to manage their own learning in order to maximize their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and become citizens with value. We believe that every young person deserves a chance to participate in development and this can only become a reality when they have the right skills and a platform to engage. Our mentorship programme aim is to harness leadership opportunities on personal, career and entrepreneurial development through linking aspiring youth to accomplished youthful leaders for empowerment.