The Mentoring Project started in SolbiateOlona School, in the province of Varese, back in 1998.

By then I had left teaching but I wanted to work in school as a volunteer. In my last ten years of teaching, my primary focus had been that of giving space – apart from the cognitive targets – to relationships, staying together and also developing self-esteem in students.

...In those years I had the chance to know the Mentoring Project and it seemed to me an activity which answered my Rogersianan training and my principles: helping and supporting kids who had self-esteem and relational problems with the aim of making emerge and grow self-esteem and awareness of positive values in them.

I showed the project to the school principal who approved it right away, then I had several meetings with parents and teachers to explain them the volunteer activity and its aims, asking them to help searching for volunteers.

I started as coordinator of the project with 5 mentees and 5 mentors who I had found available among mothers of my former students. As volunteers, we took some board game with us and some stationery to give kids the possibility to read some book, draw, and play with board games.

The entire project was based on our good will since we did not have any financial aid, the school gave us classrooms where we carried out mentoring activity. I tried to look for some financial aids, sending letters to industries and associations of the area and I found two sponsors:

- the Association of Alpine troops of the town which, for Christmas, gave and still gives us games, stationery and books.

- Lindt, a confectionery industry which has sent us for some years unsold chocolate they had in stock.

The municipal administration did not financed the project from the start but, after some years, it has started allocating funds for cartoon screening at the Socio-cultural Centre of the town and public readings in library.

From the start, even though our project was a bit "homemade", mentors and I noticed small and big results obtained: some mentees became more self-confident and thus putting more at stake their abilities in schools; others, through the positive relationship with mentors, felt stronger and more available to risk new behaviors in their daily life and school; for others there were no significant changes but mentees attended the "MentoringProject" with evident pleasure and so staying with us was like living a moment of serenity and genuine entertainment.

Little by little the project has become popular and the activity steady, the project has been appreciated by parents, teachers, and especially kids. Now it is no longer necessary for me to be present at parents' meetings because they contact me to enroll their children in the project or the same children ask me if there are any spots available for them. Also the research of mentors is no longer a problem: many of them have worked with me for several years (some of them from the beginning of the activity), others have volunteered since they heard about the projects from mentors who were their friends. The majority of volunteers live in the town but there are also people who come from towns nearby.

...Many students have been mentees: a lot of them attend high schools or universities, others already work. When I met them they greet me and remember those moments lived together with nostalgia.

So many faces crowd my memory as well as difficult and pleasant moments: it has not always been easy, from mistakes we learned also to choose mentees with care, directing our attention to students who were unconfident with some learning problems and low self-esteem who more than others could draw result by attending the project.

...I am really pleased of my work as coordinator and contact for project development and this activity of volunteering has given me many satisfactions and hasalso contributed to make me grow as a person:

- it has stimulated myself to deepen my psychology knowledge,

- it has improved my relational skills,

- it has offered me the opportunity of becoming a point of reference for parents who were experiencing problems in their relationships with their children,

- it has allowed me to know young generations of my village and has allowed me to still feel active in the field of school.

I hope, therefore, to continue working for this project for many years to come.

Mariangela Broggi, coordinator, Secondary School "G. Pascoli" Solbiare Olona, Varese