Mentorship is About Bonding, Linkages and Bridging Your Mentees
By Prof Dr. Halimu Shauri
Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com
Today, I want to share my congratulatory remarks to one Katana for sharing with me the good news in the caption below, a position we chased in the tale end of the year 2024. Am happy for Katana and wish him well in this new and very important position of a research associate at the prestigious university.
Be it as it may, am humbled beyond measure having mentored Katana in his early years of postgraduate training at Pwani University. I must attest to the zeal and enthusiasm Katana had in understanding research and using it to help humanity.
Personally, I have not only mentored Katana but I have also had an opportunity to work with him in a collaborative project between Pwani University and the Technical University of Munich in the area of One Health. I vividly remember our excursion at Kwa Maya Village in Kilifi County to witness the environment, animal and human interaction as a medium for the transmission of zonotic diseases, and a perfect example of the triangle that One Health stands for.
We have therefore bonded with Katana during our mentorship journey and the bonding is important in breaking barriers of engagement based on status and stratification challenges of power relations. I now consider Katana more of a friend, or a colleague than a mentee, then undertaking his MPH degree. Thus, bonding with your mentor is key to breaking barriers and opening doors and windows of opportunity for your growth and development.
In the same vein, mentors are key in bridging their mentees to cross from one side of the river of life to the other. As a mentor therefore you need to be aware and have the intellectual and professional strength on your back, and the willingness to lie down with your tummy and create the bridge for your mentee to cross. I lied down for Katana and many others to step, and am super ready to lie with my tummy for more to step on my back and cross over to the other side of the river in pursuit of their intellectual and professional visions and dreams.
A mentor must therefore have diverse linkages with universities, industries, organization, government, politicians, professionals, and intellectuals, bureaucrats, donors, etc. A wealth of linkages is key to linking your mentees to opportunities. Be versatile as a mentor to be able to connect your mentees to diverse array of opportunities so that they can explore and practice the skills and professionalism you have mentored them to practise.
Finally, all this wealth define the richness of the mentor in the bucket not of money but of Social Capital. My little advice then as I pen off is that when you choose to be a mentor know from the word go that you have to create Social Capital far and wide and the depth must stand the ability to bond, link and bridge your mentees to diverse opportunities out there..
Prof Dr. Halimu Shauri
DEAN & CONSULTANT SOCIOLOGIST
PWANI UNIVERSITY