Olein Webster, SI Surrey Hills
Hafdis Karlsdottir, SIE President talked to us about one of the hot topics of the Conference – mentoring.
This is something that the European clubs, networks and unions have been working on for some years. Scholarship funds are made available to young women and there are hundreds of recipients. This has led to mentoring, creating powerful teams.
Mentors are supported and trained, to help their mentees develop empowerment, self confidence and to break gender stereotypes.
The Soroptimist Leadership Academy takes place a couple of times a year. It is an intensive week of training for the young women who take part. Subjects covered include leadership, personal development, culture and democracy issues. Attendees tend to be aged between 22 and 35, a great age to start making an impression in your career.
She quoted Steve Blank, who wrote “If you want to get smarter in your career, find someone who cares about you enough to be a mentor”. Mentees choose their mentor and they can be local, national or from another country in the Federation. Choosing the right mentor is vital – they learn from each other and the relationship is definitely one that both benefit from.
So why do we need to train women on leadership? We need more representation, diverse perspectives on everything and it makes a positive impact on society. When women sit at the peace table, it is 34% more likely that the peace negotiated will last more than 15 years. Now there’s something we can lobby for!
The vision of Soroptimist International of Europe is that every member has the opportunity to be a mentor at least once in their lives. It looks like something that we should all aspire to.