FLATE Focus September, 2015
From the Executive Director’s Desk: Become a Mentor. Join the Million Women Mentors Initiative
Million Women Mentors (MWM) is a collaboration of more than 58 partners, 30 sponsors with 30+ state leadership teams.The Million
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| Photo Courtesy: Muller Elem Magnet (Twitter Feed) |
Women Mentors Leadership Council is chaired by Cisco, PepsiCo, Sodexo, and Tata Consultancy Services. To date, over 300,000 pledges to mentor girls and women in STEM have been made on their website (www.millionwomenmentors.org). The program is reaching over 30 million girls and women across the U. S. MWM supports the engagement of one million science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) mentors (male and female) to increase the interest and confidence of girls and women to persist and succeed in STEM programs and careers.
In August, Florida joined the ranks of the leadership teams when Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) pledged to mentor 500 young girls in the district schools. The plan is to mentor five girls at the 100 schools who signed up to support the project. Each Tampa mentor will spend 20 hours with its mentee/s either in person at the school, online, or however they work out. Other recommended methods of mentoring include paid internships and apprenticeships, workplace mentoring at a company, and through sponsorships. Anyone interested in mentoring can connect through the MWM web portal directly with a MWM partner including HCPS. It’s simple to sign up and simple to report your effort. One volunteer mentor at a time, HCPS hopes to start changing lives of young girls and women by providing guidance, examples, experience, and enthusiasm for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Mentoring can help build confidence in young women to know their capabilities and be proud and strong so they will persist in careers that are often male-dominated.
