60:1:10

(The journal of a Mosaic Mentor)

Adebisi Desalu

Foreword

This journal is a collection of my experiences as a Mosaic Mentor to 10

amazing girls at Ark Franklin Primary School from April 2015 to July 2015.

The title 60:1:10 stands for 60 minutes: 1ce a week: for 10 weeks which

symbolises the structure of the mentoring program where we mentored

girls for 1 hour every Thursday for 10 weeks.

This has been a remarkable experience and the start of a new passion; it

is amazing how 1 hour a week can absolutely change your life!

Chapters

1. Should I be a mentor?

2. Oh my! What have I signed up for?

3. Training day

4. The planning meeting

5. From caterpillars to Butterflies

6. The Awards

7: The University Visit

8: The Graduation

9: Quotes from mums

10: Conclusion

Photo gallery

Chapter 1: Should I be a mentor?

The decision to become a mentor I am sad to say came from a selfish

place (as I am sure most of these things do). I am a young, extremely

ambitious person, I do not like to be idle and I am always looking for the

next experience to be had and the next thing I can do to improve myself.

Another important thing to know is that I LOVE to plan anything including

my life.

I was on LinkedIn looking at profiles of professionals I wanted to be like

to see what I had to do to get my career to that level (as you do). I

quickly noticed that all these people had a few things in common;

qualifications, minimum years practical experience, continuous

personal/professional development AND voluntary work!

Light bulb moment! I need to get some voluntary

experience and quick; but what??

I cast my mind back to times when I mentored class

mates in high school and university and all the times

my parents, teachers and friends told me I would

make a great teacher.

Bingo I will volunteer as a mentor.

My next step was to type ‘mentoring young people in London’ into google

and we all know what happened next! That’s right I applied for EVERY

SINGLE ONE even though they had different values, specialised in

different risk levels (early prevention, rehabilitation etc.) and focused on

different groups in the community.

After hearing nothing back for a week or so I decided to be more targeted

in my search and choose a group that I cared about (young BAME girls).

Thus Mosaic appeared on my computer screen and the rest (as they say)

is history!

Chapter 2: Oh my! What have I signed up for?

So the application has been put in, I have been selected, sent the

information pack and invited for a training day! Great news right?

WRONG!

Queue the anxiety, second guessing and sweat

patches.

I spend the day speaking to two of my colleagues

with mentoring experience hoping to hear all the nice

fluffy stories you would expect; ‘You will change lives

on a daily basis’ ‘ it feels like nothing else’ etc.

WRONG AGAIN!

Instead I get (and I quote):

- The sexual tension in primary schools these days is unbelievable!

- I doubt the kids will curse at you on the first day

- Their mums are involved as well? Good luck!

I remember getting teary eyed speaking to a colleague about how

nervous I was that I would be terrible at it, and as someone who hates

failure this was the worst thing I could ever imagine.

(It is important to say that I did get very useful advice from my

colleagues and their pep talks helped me see that it is a great thing to do;

so a massive thank you for them).

For the rest of the week every time I thought about it my heart would

skip; till today I cannot tell you exactly what I was worried about.

Without the training I did not know what to expect and I became very

worried; so I decided to think about it in a very simplistic way.

‘I will not be changing the lives of children, for the one hour they are with

me it means they cannot be doing something negative elsewhere’

Chapter 3: Training day

Professional outfit has been pre planned the night before.

Information pack has been studied and printed out.

(No surprise there from a control freak).

The location of the training is at an amazingly beautiful part of London

with lovely historical type buildings.

I get to the venue, hand in documents for DBS and grab some snacks-

M&S snacks (nice one Mosaic).

We get settled in the room and my stomach sinks; I am the youngest

person here! As the introductions get underway I begin to feel worse as

everyone else in the room has some prior experience in mentoring, with

Mosaic, works in a primary school or is a mother of primary school aged

children.

What could I possibly offer that these amazing ladies could not?

Have I been a victim of family loyalty? This is when you are told you are

great at something by your family (because they have to, they are your

family) like some of the acts on X factor just to get out there and Simon

bursts your bubble and you realise your family have been lying to you all

your life! Was this training my Simon?!

At the end of the training though I feel a

lot better and a lot more equipped to

handle primary school girls.

I am ready to take on the world with

Mosaic by my side.

Excited? INDEED!

Chapter 4: The planning meeting

I have been assigned my first choice of school and next up is the planning

meeting with the school. Time to sit down with the other mentors and the

school contact and find out more about the girls we would be mentoring.

It was weird at first getting background information on people you had

never met or seen but it was useful to put into context what you could

expect, the possible personality clashes and level of engagement you

could expect.

In summary it did not leave us with a lot of hope.

Chapter 5: From Caterpillars to Butterflies

Day one with the girls and their mums was all about getting to know each

other. I felt like a suspect and the mums were FBI agents.

Understandably so as they wanted to make sure I would be a good

influence on their girls. Questions poured in from my background,

education and marital status to my favourite flavour of ice cream!

(Cookies and cream if you were wondering).

Lucky for me I passed the test and the rest of the mentoring experience

was excellent.

During the programme we had so many

changes in the girls that were so magical

and heart-warming. Like caterpillars in a

cocoon they blossomed into beautiful

butterflies. They became confident in their

abilities and formed a place for themselves

in the group. I shall now take you through

some of the metamorphoses I had the

privilege to experience.

Butterfly One

We had a very quiet girl who never spoke due to a communication

problem so she preferred to draw and sometimes write her answers

down. She was very unique and her answers were not too popular with

the group (she liked dinosaurs and math as opposed to one direction).

She is a very interesting and intelligent girl but seemed very

uncomfortable in the group.

Through the mentoring program she began

to make friends with other girls and began

to answer questions verbally and

confidently!

She became more comfortable in the

group and would even crack a few jokes

once in a while.

At the graduation she actually stood in

front of the audience with her peers and

recited a few lines of poetry; something

that at week 1 we would have never believed would happen. Even her

mum was pleasantly surprised.

She found her voice and there is no stopping her now!

Butterfly Two

There were two sisters who had never been separated all their life; one

was outspoken and the other as expected was extremely submissive.

It’s week 3 and we are talking to the girls about role models. I was extra

nervous as this was the first session I was leading on but boy was I glad I

did.

I had been racking my brain all week trying to think of role models that I

thought would be relatable to the girls; someone from Disney? What is

Raven doing these days? Etc.

At the class I start the first activity and we go through pictures of some

role models. I then throw the question back to the girls of other role

models out there and this is when my mind was blown.

The submissive sister who had rarely participated goes ‘Miss? You haven’t

mentioned Rosa Parks, she fought for black people by not moving on the

bus’. I was speechless as I never expected that from her or any of the

girls.

Does she stop there? Oh no! She throws out Rosalind Franklin, Angelina

Jolie for adopting less fortunate children and Emma Watson; not as a

Harry Potter actress but as an activist for women! MIND – BLOWN!

Like a volcano bubbling

away under the surface for

years she had finally had

enough of not speaking her

mind and letting others

speak on her behalf.

She decided to erupt and

from that day on she was

unstoppable and continued

to engage with the

programme at a much

higher level.

Butterfly Three

We had a girl whose mother had said to us that she was acting out at

home and they were not getting along. So it’s week six and we had an

activity where the mentees needed to write a nice message to another

mentee along of the lines of ‘this person is a super star because…’

For the mums who were present we had them write about their daughters

and vice versa. When everyone had written about their partners we read

these out and then handed the message to the person

they were about.

As we read out her message to her mother we could

see the tears building in her mother’s eyes, she taps

her daughters shoulder and they share a hug.

We then read the mothers message to the daughter

that focuses not on what she does wrong but all the

things she does right.

No word of a lie from that day on, they both came into

each session smiling, holding hands, working on

activities together and being the best of friends. We

don’t know what changed but the space created by the mentoring

programme allowed them to find time outside of home related topics to

bond and get to know each other.

Butterfly Four

We had a girl in the programme who was super cool, she was disruptive

and pursued the spot light over creative an engaging environment for

others.

The lesson that week was on good communication and it involved an

activity where the girls needed to work together to complete a task. So

we put the girls into groups and this cool girl was paired up with a group

of quiet girls to complete the exercise. The other two girls as I said were

very quiet and as English wasn’t their first language they had required

even more assistance during the sessions.

To our surprise though what did we

see? We saw an unlikely friendship

emerge.

What we saw was her step back,

help the other girls along, foster

team work and ensure everyone

was being carried along.

She harnessed all that energy and

put it into something positive.

As the programme continued she became more and more responsible and

even had a hand written letter delivered to us to apologise about not

being able to make a session (the letter can be found in the photo

gallery).

The other mentors and I were so pleased as she had spent the first few

weeks being too cool for the programme; now she enjoys and respects it

so much that she sent a letter to make sure we understood why she was

not able to attend.

Butterfly Five

Finally there was a girl who was without a doubt the most intelligent in

the group but so shy. After lessons we would look at her book and be

blown away by the answers she would give and how far ahead of the rest

she was. But getting her to speak or even give us her answers during the

class was impossible. We had been trying various methods to get her

involved as her thoughts would have really benefitted the whole group but

to no avail. You could see her physically shaking and uncomfortable any

time we looked her way, asked her a question or even acknowledged

great work she had done.

As I am sure you have already guessed one day it all turned around. On

one particular day the activity was around power poses where we got the

girls to come to the front of the class and show us a pose that makes

them feel confident.

That day we had gone through the group and in order not to make her

feel left out we asked her if she would like to do hers by her chair rather

than come to the front. She was unresponsive for a bit as if she was

battling with something but then to our surprise she came to the front of

the class and did her pose.

The whole class clapped, whooped and chanted her name. It was lovely to

see that the other mentees were proud of her too for coming forward and

also that they noticed she did something that 5 weeks ago she would

have dreaded. She went back to her seat with the biggest smile on her

face.

Like a scared little cub she finally

summed up the courage to leave the

comfort of hibernation and emerge

from the snow to show the world

what she was made of!

Chapter 6: The Awards

The awards dinner was towards the end of the program and unfortunately

I was not able to attend. I then received an email from our Mosaic contact

saying that I had been awarded Mentor of the Year!

“I would like to thank God,

my family for believing in me

and all the haters who

thought I wouldn’t make it”.

I joke of course but I

honestly could not believe it,

me? I had only been at it 8

weeks!!!

I was so honoured and

touched. I actually had to

ask ‘are you sure you have

the right person?’ It was

indeed a very great feeling

and I was so pleased.

After a day or two when the humility settled I began to feel very cool with

myself. Should I get a t-shirt printed with Mentor of the Year on it?

Beep!

What’s that?

Debisi has updated her LinkedIn profile? I wonder what it says.

Notification: Debisi has added a skill ‘Mentor of the Year 2015’.

Notification: Debisi has added an award ‘Mentor of the Year 2015’.

Chapter 7: The University Visit

So the week 7 session is over and we inform the girls that the university

visit is fast approaching. They are all so excited and we are inundated

with questions.

After the girls have left we usually group together with the assistant head

teacher and discuss the day. She then informs us that the university visit

is no longer on.

WHAT?!!! We have just told the girls plus they have been looking forward

to it since day one.

After exhausting all my contacts my CEO and I are finally able to arrange

for Middlesex University to host the girls.

So the big day arrives and I take the day off work and it was so worth it. I

don’t know who was more excited, the girls, the university or me.

It was an amazing day, the university pulled out all the stops and the girls

felt like celebrities. There is nowhere that was off limits to us and every

department we went to had a member of staff waiting to show us around.

The girls saw a real life radio studio, robotic arm in the science labs, the

real tennis court, the students’ union, a lecture theatre, a musical theatre

and the library.

They had the student union president show them around as well.

The highlight for them was the lecture hall and the library where they

were shown the automatic book sorter!

All day they all kept saying they were definitely going to attend Middlesex

University.

The day was wrapped up nicely with lunch in the

atrium.

The girls had full bellies and most importantly

hearts and minds full of dreams and aspirations.

They had a new sense of purpose and began to

believe that they could definitely do anything

they put their minds to.

Chapter 8: The Graduation

This is the day we have all been looking forward to; girls, mums and

mentors. I have booked the day off work and gotten my clothes ready as

if I was graduating!

The venue was beautiful and right next to Tower Bridge which made for

amazing sites!

The day was an amazing one with motivational speakers, presentations

from the girls and a lovely lunch afterwards. It was great to see the girls

and mums receive their awards as they were so excited and had worked

so hard. It was also lovely to see mums supporting their daughters and

already thinking towards their university needs.

All in all it was a magical day.

Chapter 9: Quotes from mums

“Doing Mosaic has improved the communication between my daughter

and me. It made her more confident and more open to trying new things”

“The programme has helped my daughter and I to interact more with

each other about her future. She has gained confidence and she definitely

isn’t as shy as when we started”

“My daughter is more confident. If there are more programmes I will

definitely want her involved not even for the certificate but for the

positive changes I have seen in her”

“It has been amazing to watch as the girls have all been through a

journey and have improved from start to finish”

“The mentoring created a family of girls, mums and mentors”

Chapter 10: Conclusion

The mentoring programme has ignited a passion in me that I never knew

existed. I absolutely loved my time with the girls and the work we were

doing. I have realised that I have a passion and talent for it and I can see

mentoring becoming a permanent activity in my life.

It feels great to use my skills in this way, help others and I too have

grown through this.

The next step in my mentoring journey has already manifested itself as I

have been asked to be the Lead mentor at one of the programmes

autumn schools!

A life lived for yourself alone is but a life half fulfilled.

– Adebisi Desalu

Photo Gallery

A letter from a mentee who wasn’t able to make a class.

The university visit to Middlesex University

Thank you cards from the mentees to Middlesex

University

Some work from the sessions

The Graduation

[Proud mums and mentor!]

Presents from the girls

The End