SI Club Dubai
From their perspective, the Soroptimists in Dubai, consider that there is a clear lack of role models, lack of confidence and a dearth of mentoring opportunities in their region. Therefore the members of Gulf Dubai chose to create and run a mentoring project to support working women to advance in the professional space and help them to balance work/life issues. Indeed, “mentoring” is a sharing, supporting and learning experience in which an experienced woman (mentors) brings her approaches and expertise to a mentee who pursues professional objectives and is willing to gain competences to succeed.
The benefits of being a mentee:
- Know each other better
- Benefit from support and female leadership
- Receive constructive comments from a professional
- Learn to be mentored
- Check the solidity of a professional project
The main challenge has been having sufficient time to organize the group sessions and follow up with all the mentors and mentees involved. Ideally, Soroptimists would need funding to have a part-time administrator for the program and also to promote the mentoring project to attract more women to get involved.
Two club members have joined the project lead to assist with managing the programme activities. They were able to create a website thanks to a generous individual donation. This has helped to make the project known, but Soroptimists need to carry out promotional activities to encourage more women to participate.
The mentoring project has already involved 45 women with some 80 % providing extremely good feedback regarding their involvement. For testimonials and complete information, refer to www.the-link.org.