Accelerate! Mentoring under Construction 2022

Mentoring under Construction is a community for practitioners interesting in improving the quality of mentoring within the European Solidarity Corps programme. It is a process to build and develop this community. After a long period of online activities, the growth of Mentoring under Construction accelerated in 2022, it gained speed in identifying, adapting and implementing good mentoring practices.

M entoring under Construction (MuC) is all about building a resourceful and sustainable community around mentoring within the European Solidarity Corps programme. This community is open for practitioners like mentors, project coordinators and project managers, trainers, authors and researchers that support each other in identifying, adapting and implementing mentoring practices in their daily work within volunteering projects and organisations.

Spotlight ON! – Moving ON! – Accelerate!

That’s briefly the story so far. But let’s take it step-by-step…

In 2019, Romina Matei (European Solidarity Corps Resource Centre) and Andrei Popescu (Romanian National Agency for European Solidarity Corps) put together first ideas for a community development project around mentoring within the European Solidarity Corps programme.

Spotlight ON! The project was meant to kick off with a networking event in 2020 which had to be cancelled (due to you-know-who) and would later be transformed into a series of online events. With a minor delay, Mentoring under Construction came to light. 

Moving ON! – The second year opened the doors to new online formats, like regular MeetUPs and a One Day Intensive Workshops. We made another attempted to meet in person – which almost happened.

Accelerate! In 2022, the community development gained speed: this time, we finally succeeded going residential and we met with a group of practitioners. The MuC Community grew larger and we increased the number of online activities. During our MeetUPs, podcasts and in our facebook group a lot of valuable content around mentoring has been produced and shared.

Let’s see below, how this worked out… 😉

Mentoring under Construction | Events in 2022

Objectives 2022 and achievements

Our objectives for 2022:

• To enlarge the MuC Community
• To transform the MuC into a HUB for learning and connecting opportunities 
• To generate quality / inspirational content for community members
• To provide a space for learning, networking and project building around mentoring
• To promote mentoring and Mentoring under Construction Community

Thanks to our growing community we were able to accomplish various things:

• the transnational, residential event Let’s face it! in March,
• 9 MeetUPs and 7 podcasts over the year. and
• one One Day Intensive Workshop in November.

Mentoring under Construction | Let’s face it!

Mentoring under Construction. MeetUPs 2022

The MeetUPs are a space to share, explore and discuss questions and good practise related to mentoring. These 2 hour events were often prepared together with a guest and happened online. The topics focussed on:

• Mentors in your life
• Mentoring Training
• How to talk about war/peace
• Developing Project Ideas
• Facilitating Learning
• Recruiting and maintaining volunteers
• Wellbeing in volunteering projects
• Magic Moments 2022

MuC Event Documentation | Padlet

One-day Intensive Online Workshop

One essential part of our process of community building is to connect actors in the field and share experience and stories around mentoring. At the same time we want to conceptualise mentoring challenges, practices and competences.

This One Day Intensive Workshop (24.11.2022) focussed on three classical areas of mentoring:

• Supporting volunteers in their local/cultural integration,
• Facilitating the learning process of volunteers and
• Troubleshooting (including conflict mediation).

The Intense Day Workshop was a good way to bring new mentors and experienced mentors together. The discussion showed that troubleshooting, especially mediating in conflict situations is a big issue.

Mentoring under Construction Podcasts

Mentoring under Construction Step it up!

YES, it’s happening again! Our residential event is coming up in April 2023:

Save the dates: 25-29 April 2023 in Vilnius, Lithuania

Information and Applications

Mentoring under Construction. Join our Community

The Mentoring under Construction Community is open for everyone who is interested in raising the quality in mentoring within European Solidarity Corps programme (and beyond): mentors, including those, who just embark into this journey and those, who mentor other mentors, project managers/organisers developing and implementing volunteering projects, coordinators of volunteers, facilitators of learning, authors and trainers creating tools and resources about mentoring, and last, but not least, members of National Agencies and SALTO Resource Centres.

The Mentoring under Construction Community aims at:

• building a common understanding of key concepts around the role of a mentor (role, responsibilities, competences) as well as how to develop and implement mentoring programmes within volunteering organisations,
• developing personal and professional competence to keep up with the emerging challenges in the field of mentoring,
• sharing knowledge, resources and good practices,
• building a vibrant network of people engaged in mentoring, ready to support one another, learn and develop.

Mentoring under Construction Community (on Facebook)