and Crown Counsel Erica Edwards
The Anguilla Bar Association launched a Mentorship Programme at Campus A of the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School on Tuesday this week, May 21. It is aimed at fourth and fifth form students and will officially commence in September at the beginning of the new school year.
At the launching ceremony were High Court Judge, Madam Justice Cheryl Mathurin; President of the Bar Association, Ms. Yvette Wallace; Vice President, Mrs. Josephine Gumbs-Connor, and other executive officers and members; and a number of students. Both the Private Bar and the Public Bar are involved in the programme as one body concerned about the personal development and future of the students.
The ceremony was chaired by Attorney Yannick Stewart, a member of the Mentorship Committee. She led the students in prayer and spoke in part on the motto of the Mentorship Programme – Paying It Forward, the reverse of the common phrase pay it back. “The idea behind paying it forward is that if somebody does a good deal for you, instead of doing a good dead for that individual, you are paying it forward,” she explained.
Crown Counsel in the Attorney General Chambers, Ms. Erica Edwards, said that mentoring and being mentored were key components to the success of any individual. “If one listens to the life stories of any successful person, one would hear of persons who provided guidance, teaching, counselling, coaching and so on,” she stated in setting the tone for the event. “What such persons are saying is that the guidance and mentoring they received from others, through life challenges, have fostered their innate potential and capabilities and polished and forged them into the outstanding successes that they have become. Benjamin Franklin said Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn. This mentorship programme seeks to provide young persons in Anguilla with the tools needed to forge them into successful men and women, and to enhance their overall development.”
Mrs. Josephine Gumbs-Connor told the students in part: “We are looking at three main categories in which we are hoping to expose you to many things. One of the segments is called ‘know yourself’. It doesn’t matter who you are; where you came from – whether you came from a wonderful home or from a home that has challenges. It doesn’t matter because when you know who you are, and you are comfortable with who you are, you can interact with anybody…The fact is that when you are comfortable in your own skin, then you have a certain presence about yourself. And so part of what we will be sharing and interacting with you is on what those strengths are. We want to impress on you the importance of honesty, integrity, fair play. These are the things that demonstrate who you are.”
Mrs.Gumbs-Connor also mentioned other segments of the mentorship programme including how to deal with peer pressure; matters of etiquette and deportment and how they should eventually relate to the business world.
Ms. Jean Dyer, Secretary of the Bar Association, said those conducting the mentorship programme would include various professionals and not just lawyers. “It is not only for persons who are interested in doing law. It is for any career that you are interested in,” she explained. “We are going to work with you, and even if you don’t know what you are interested in we are going to assist in making that decision.”
Ms. Dyer was pleased that, so far, Digicel had undertaken to sponsor the mentorship programme. Colwayne Pickering, the company’s Corporate SalesManager, said Digicel was delighted in partnering with the Bar Association. “We see the need, and we are absolutely pleased not only to make that investment, but also to stand as mentors. I am looking forward to having you in my office doing the work that I do so that you know what it means to be a professional.”
Attorney Kerith Kentish said that students now had an opportunity to have access to local and non-local professionals. “I think this is a great opportunity for each of you to take full effect of,” he advised the students. “I encourage all of you to sign up for the mentorship programme.”
The brochure for the mentorship programme states that it (the programme) is aimed at assisting students in their overall development: “It was initiated out of a need to provide the successful students with those important behavioural and interpersonal skills not found in a textbook but necessary for successful survival in a competitive work environment.”
“The brochure continues: “The programme is expected to run for a 6-month period and will focus on three main areas: Knowing Oneself, Etiquette and Deportment and Professional Development. The Programme places students, referred to as “Mentees” with Mentors who are accomplished senior and middle management professionals from the communities in a one-to-one relationship.”
The ceremony concluded with the launching of the Mentorship Programme by the President of the Anguilla Bar Association, Ms. Yvette Wallace.
