Girl mentoring program - A case study of Girls 4 Girls in Botswana with Bokani Thekwini

The Issue

Bokani grew up in the remote parts of Botswana, where she was not surrounded by much positive exposure or inspiration. She had no prompt to dream beyond what she could see. She therefore had difficulty when she transitioned to the city for higher education. She suddenly was exposed to much more that unlocked her ability to dream, but still struggled to navigate the space between who and where she was, and what she now dreamt of.

This is the reality of many young people growing up in remote, hard to reach areas in Botswana today. They become involved in juvenile delinquency and become victims of Gender Based Violence and its consequences.

Bokani believes that young people are resourceful, aspirational and have contributions to society. What if we could all see them in this light and do something to support this positive narrative about youth, especially women and young girls? 

Bokani was saved by intentional mentorship done right which helped her navigate her path, and she believes in its power to help young people today.

Featured Solution: Girl Mentoring Program

She joined the Botswana Chapter of Project Girls For Girls (G4G), a girl mentoring program that exists to empower girls and young women (ages 15-25) to lead, leaning on the pillars of inspiration, mentorship and networking. The program was born in the Harvard Kennedy School in 2017 by a group of post graduate women, concerned by the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions. Since its inception, the Botswana Chapter has graduated over 300 mentees and 100 mentors, and currently has 10 active circles.

The G4G program lasts for 6 sessions, with one leadership module being covered per session. The 6 leadership modules are: Building Trust, Courageous Leadership, The Art of Communication, Negotiating for Self and Others, Preparing for Public Office (or for any responsibility, position, engagement) and Ethical Decision Making.

Each circle comprises 10 - 15 girls who meet at a pace that they and their mentors are comfortable with. Typically, there are 2 - 3 mentors assigned to each circle, so that in case a mentor cannot attend a session, there are backup mentors who ensure the session can continue. Some circles take 6 weeks (meeting once a week) to complete the program while others can take 6 months (meeting once a month). The flow of each session is as follows:

• Mentees watch a 15 - 20 minute video by a Professor from the Harvard Kennedy School on the session’s topic (e.g. Courageous Leadership)
  
• Mentees get to listen to a guest speaker invited by their mentor to share a personal story that is relevant to the topic
  
• Mentees share their personal experiences around the topic and engage in a discussion with their mentor and the invited guest speaker.

Each session lasts for 2 hours and girls are encouraged to connect with their mentors or guest speakers outside of the session if they would like a further conversation.

After completing all 6 sessions, the girls participate in a graduation ceremony where they receive their certificates and are invited to join the global G4G network, where they can connect with mentors and mentees from previous batches and other chapters around the world.

Here they can access other opportunities for personal and professional development, including further tailored mentorship.

Impact Measurement

G4G Botswana aims to see its impact reflected in many ways, including more women representation in the 2024 and 2029 Botswana national elections, but this can only be observed in a few years time. 

In the interim, G4G conducts surveys at specific times to evaluate if the mentoring program is creating impact. Mentors and mentees are invited to complete surveys after each session and at the end of the 6 sessions that ask them to describe what they have learnt, what they liked and how the program can improve. 

Additionally, G4G also sends out an annual survey to alumni, asking them about how they are doing, if any new perspectives have emerged for them, what they are doing differently as a result of their G4G experience and if there are parts of their success that they can directly attribute to the G4G mentoring program (e.g. applying for a leadership position that they previously didn't have courage to pursue). 

The idea is to collect stories of alumni who have translated their learning into action and to demonstrate the impact of the G4G program through the quality of these stories.

Best Practices

G4G does several things to set up conditions for the mentor-mentee relationship to be meaningful:

1. Pair mentees with mentors they can relate to

Beyond having mentors who are in key leadership positions or have done something notable in their lives, each girl is paired with a female mentor whose life experience she can relate to (e.g. a woman who grew up in the same village under similar circumstances or challenges). 

Girls are also matched with mentors in key leadership positions who are aligned with their stage of life or have similar interests. For example, the mentor for a 25 year old girl looking to enter into a managerial position would be different from the mentor of a 15 year old girl who wants to be a prefect in school. 

This relatability is very important because seeing someone like themselves become successful, understanding their challenges and how they overcame it creates a fundamental shift in mentees - they start to believe that they can be successful because they see someone like them who has made it.

This builds courage in them to move from engaging with the mentor intellectually to actually taking action. This is a core condition for the program to work. If the mentor and mentee are worlds apart, the mentor may struggle to fully understand the mentee’s challenges and their advice may not be practically applicable in the mentee’s cultural and economic context.

2. Prepare an application questionnaire for mentees and mentors

To support better matching, each mentor who applies for the G4G program has to complete an application form where they need to answer questions such as: why they are interested in mentoring, describe prior experiences with mentoring, what they hope to contribute and what skills they bring to the table, among others. “It is almost like how one would apply for a job. These questions help us judge their commitment and skills beyond just an excitement to contribute. They also help us to match mentees with mentors with similar interests, geographical location, age and who can help realize their goals,” Bokani said.

3. Provide mandatory training for new mentors

Just because a mentor is professionally successful does not mean they can translate that into tools to empower a mentee. All new mentors for G4G go through training where they learn about G4G’s vision, the expectations required of a mentor and fundamental mentorship principles (e.g. not creating replicates of yourself but helping people to carve their own path of leadership.) First time G4G mentors are also paired with seasoned ones to ensure that mentees can receive the best from new mentors.

Good mentorship requires the mentor to:

1. Reveal the challenges they faced

Effective mentorship happens when the mentor shares about the challenges they faced and the exact decisions they took to overcome them. Sharing challenges humanizes the mentor and creates a bond between mentor and mentee that is conducive for transformation. For example, Bokani once invited a lawyer to be a guest speaker for one of the circles she co-mentored.

The lawyer shared about her challenges with imposter syndrome and the severe financial and academic setbacks she faced to obtain her qualifications. She dubbed her sharing “the story behind the bio” and all the girls in Bokani’s circle resonated with it, stating that this story assured them that they too can keep a positive attitude to see challenges as stepping stones to better things, as opposed to disheartening stumbling blocks.

2. Recognize unspoken baggage carried by mentees

Mentees may come with deeply embedded traumas or may have normalized accepting toxic relationships or negative self-beliefs. A good mentor recognizes this and creates a safe space which supports their mentee to become aware of these traumas or beliefs, which might become obstacles towards a productive mentor-mentee relationship. 

During their training, new mentors also learn about how to support mentees with traumatic experiences that may be triggered during the mentorship, as well as resources they can connect mentees with. In the circle that Bokani co-mentored, she recognized differing levels of readiness to speak up and share amongst her mentees. So she created small groups where each mentor had a smaller number of mentees to interact with, thereby creating an avenue for mentees to share more personal struggles for which they received tailored support.

3. Be careful of building dependency

A good mentor does not only give answers to mentees but serves as a facilitator who asks questions to mentees to help them discover their answers. While the mentor might share relevant stories from their life experience, they must be careful to not tell the mentee what to do. They must balance the fine line between giving suggestions and encouraging the mentee to have agency to choose. 

Bokani once shared an international exchange program to Washington DC with her mentees, as she believed that it would be a great learning opportunity for them. Instead of pushing any of her mentees to apply or writing the application for them, she encouraged her mentees to learn about the requirements, find character references and reminded them to submit their applications if they were interested

Other Learning

When working with schools, design your girl mentoring program to fit within their curriculum time. G4G receives its mentees through working with various schools in Botswana. Instead of designing the program to happen outside of school time, they ensure that the mentoring sessions can be conducted within 2 hours during school clubs or career guidance sessions - time that is already within the school day. Because this does not disrupt the way the school is operating, it is much easier for the Principal to say yes to bringing the program to girls in their school.