Coordinatori

When three years ago the school principal asked me to coordinate the Mentoring Project, I did not imagine the type of experience I would have had. I did not know the Mentoring program and the people I had to work with, mentors and psychologist, but I knew the majority of kids and their different problems and, as soon as I understood the aims of the project, I thought it could have been a good opportunity for their growth.

Indeed, day after day I had the chance to observe the evolution of the relationship between each mentor and his mentee and between all the components of the group.

The commitment, availability, the attention of each mentor for his mentee has helped to make kids feel special, allowing them to become more self-confident, to improve relationships with peers, to learnrespect and tolerance of other people' point of view, to cooperate with others, to become supportive of each other.

The relationship established by mentors has allowed mentees to open, confide without fear of being judged and has restored the smile on one of them who, three years ago, had a sad and dark look.

The school results of some children have not been positive after all because of some basic gaps, but they continued attending school regularly and working, thus keeping alive the desire to improve.

Every mentees has lived this experience as a wonderful adventure. Other peers keep looking for me to have information about how to enroll in Mentoring.

The Mentoring Project, thanks to the valuable help of Dr. Laura Tiziani, psychologist, has allowed me to approach the world of kids in a context – even though a school one – completely different from that one of the classroom, and using different methods from those used in the classroom. Each teacher is called to respond to multiple requests which come from students with different characteristics and a better understanding of their world may favor the understanding of how to organize the educational activity. Teaching can only benefit from a relationship which greatly involve an emotional level.

Angela Maria Faragasso, coordinator

- Stop crying Giada, please. Your mentor will be back really soon - I tell her.

Giada doesn't stop. She hugs Carla, greets her, stops crying, hugs her again, cries, greets her again but then she throws her arms around her neck again.

I wanted to start my report on the experience of the project "Mentoring, I found a friend at school" with this imagine which has been before my eyes and is more explanatory and meaningful than words.

And what about Karim, who any time we meet at school he asks "Is there Mentoring today? No – I reply – it is finished, you know that Karim" "What a pity!" and then the day after he asks it to me again hoping that his words could become magical and as a kind of magic making it continues. "Is it going to be next year? When is it going to start?" he says to me thus showing his desire.

But also Ramona, simpler and more direct, says to me she is disappointed that Mentoring has finished. She would have had it to last another month, perhaps until the end of school.

How can I forget Amal who argued all the time with his grandmother because he did not want to leave school and wanted to use each minute, and even more, of the precious time he spent with us at school.

Those and other children have participated right away with regularity, but someone else has started with a bit of distrust, and I had to make sure that they came, in fact some of them skipped our meeting at the beginning. At halfway through their resistance fell and, especially in Bingfang, I noticed a change and the joy to come to class, punctuality in the timetable and impatience of waiting for his mentor.

Those who could not regularly attend the project or interrupted it, they did it because of commitments of their parents and distance from school. For this reason, some of them, to guarantee the afternoon attendance, I offered to stop at school at the end of the lesson and have lunch with me. Others "found out" it and have "boldly" asked me to stay. How could I say no? So I found myself together with 9-10 children having lunch at school.

It was another magic moment of the day for them which they could have spent setting the tables, sharing food, tidying up the classroom and then preparing for group or board games or simply preparing for the meeting with their mentors drawing an object to give to him or her.

The mentees have always been happy of meeting with their mentors, but they will never forget the last day out to eat an ice cream offered by mentors, as well as they will never forget (as a point of reference) the moment in which they worked to create their "book of memories", a real and long lasting evidence of their friendship.

And what about me? I surely learned more than them, I enriched professionally and personally, especially thanks to the help of the psychologist dr. Oddo, who has showed us some situations or behaviors from another perspective: that one of the children. Indeed, we often forget that in our "difficult" classroom, apart from the group, there is the single person: we need to be watchful and give them the space they need and if in that moment it is not possible, it's better not to leave the question open but to go over it in a more peaceful moment to not disappoint the student because of our carelessness.

Rosa Picone, teacher