The Editor, Sir:

The initiative by Digicel to sponsor an apprenticeship and mentorship programme for students at four of our Jamaican universities is to be commended.

For one, mentoring places learning outside of the usual cognitive domain to the practical and experiential domains. Second, it emphasises that learning is to take place not merely in the classroom but in one-on-one or small group settings.

Further, it assumes that older professionals and other persons have something meaningful and helpful to pass on to to the next generation and that the next generation NEEDS that mentor-mentee relationship to develop properly. In Eastern cultures, this is often assumed, not so in Western cultures.

Academic contexts

I must warn us, however, of the danger of reducing mentoring to only professional or even academic contexts. My experience, born out of years of mentoring others and leading an organization that trains persons to mentor in various countries, is that the greatest and most strategic areas of mentoring are in the psychological, emotional and spiritual areas. I call this "mentoring for character and identity formation".

It is absolutely crucial that we understand that most of our children and youths in the Caribbean are deprived of the types of psycho-emotional and spiritual experiences that used to be part of the home, school and church, and are thus in need of parent substitutes to fill the vacuum.

This is why I am in Grenada developing mentoring programmes that will, hopefully, have a national impact on children and youth in their schools and communities.

So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive. It is my hope that we will succeed here in Grenada in such a way that will lead other Caribbean countries to follow.

I am, etc.,

Rev COURTNEY RICHARDS

cdr1957@gmail.com

International Director, Renewed Ministries

Lecturer, Jamaica Theological Seminary

Via Go-Jamaica