Building relationships through mentoring

Fledgling social enterprise, vLink, aims to link working professionals, undergraduates and primary school students in multi-tier mentorships. By Andrew Phua (author). Youth mentoring in Singapore is sometimes conflated with counselling or tuition, or prescribed to help ‘problem’ youths. vLink is a social enterprise aimed at utilising mentorship as a pre-emptive, rather than reactive tool to help youths improve and excel. SALT Online sits down with Ng Yong Hao, 24, director of vLink and undergraduate at the National University of Singapore (NUS), to find out more about this social enterprise, which started in February 2011. Could you explain how vLink works? vLink works with three main groups: Professionals, undergraduates and primary schoolchildren. We pair professionals with undergraduates to give working advice, as this is something undergraduates value. Simultaneously, these undergraduates mentor upper primary schoolchildren (Primary 4 to 6, with age range from 10 to 12), as we feel that they are able to connect better. This three-tier model uniquely positions our programme not as a typical ‘volunteering’ programme, but a learning platform for all three groups. Mentoring is a two-way interaction that we believe allows mentor and mentee to learn from each other. We develop the curriculum and training to help these relationships flourish. Each level features a programme consisting of eight separate modules. For Primary 5s, we have vDiscover, which raises their self-awareness – a critical first step. At Primary 6, vExcel helps build upon the earlier foundation to address more developmental needs. Schools can choose from a basket of modules, allowing us to cater to individual needs. How many are in your core team and are all of you volunteers? Currently, we have four in our core team, and we work with undergraduate and professional mentors. Everyone’s a volunteer right now. How do you select who gets mentored, and who are mentors? When selecting primary school youths, we target the ‘sandwich class’ – those we believe are forgotten as they are not high-risk, but also not well-off. One determinant is family income – some families lie just above the cap for financial assistance. Other determinants include grades, behavioural issues or single-parent family life. This is an elusive group to identify, so we work closely with teachers to glean this information. Our pilot programme with a neighbourhood primary school involved 11 students, while we have been in contact with five other primary schools. Unfortunately, we can’t name the schools as we do not have their permission. For working professionals, we look for those from various industries who have worked around five to six years. This gives them solid industry experience while allowing them to connect with undergraduates. We try to match mentors and mentees based on industry interest. Professional mentors are found through personal friends, word-of-mouth and networking. Undergraduate recruitment is done through school channels such as e-mail blasts. For our career mentoring pilot, we matched six professionals with six undergraduates, from industries like consulting, banking and finance, engineering and entrepreneurship – these were internationally well-known firms or successful local start-up companies. The undergraduates were from NUS. We do plan to recruit from other schools too; it was just easier for our pilot to focus on NUS. Mentors are not paid. It’s pro-bono. Attaching a price would change the nature of what we do and hurt the social mission that we have, making our relationships more transactional. Do you monitor these mentorships? Yes, we do. We periodically check back with professionals whether they have been meeting up and whether statements from both parties are congruent. Our guideline is for a minimum of two contact hours per month, but each relationship is flexible; depending on the pair, contact can be via e-mail, face-to-face meet-ups or calls. The mentoring lasts around four months. They can continue after the stipulated period; however, this would no longer be under the purview of vLink. Why the name ‘vLink’? ‘V’ sounds like ‘we’. Hence, vLink is about linking people through mentoring relationships. Our founder, Jin Jing, chose the name. While at NUS Overseas College in Philadelphia, US, back in October 2010, she taught English to public schoolchildren, and was also involved in a career mentoring programme. Through these experiences, she felt both youth and career mentoring were much needed in Singapore, so conceptualised a three-tier mentoring model incorporating both aspects. Jin Jing is still very much involved in vLink and currently serving as the director for business development at vLink. Why did you join vLink? What events or people inspired you? I got an e-mail from the university administration regarding the opening, and decided to join to help mentor. I’d always been interested in working in youth development, but what really captured me was the concept of mentoring – I felt it was refreshing and much-needed in Singapore. Do you feel there is not enough being done for primary school students and undergraduates? What problems do they typically face? Certainly more can be done! I feel many mentoring programmes cater only for at-risk youths; mentoring should extend beyond these groups, and play a more active role in development, not just preventive or remedial action. The majority of Singapore students are not at-risk. Yet, I feel many developmental needs of these students are not entirely met in schools. Why? Teachers wear multiple hats. I often hear my friends who teach say that they want to give individual attention to each student, but find it difficult to do so because they have too little time. I find this saddening. I feel it is only through deeper relationships that greater, more valuable lessons are left on students. As for undergraduates, I find many of my peers constantly question whether we have chosen the right course, and whether it truly aligns with our personal dreams and goals. Even if we believe so, are we really prepared for life after graduation? A mentor would be a great help here. How is your organisation different from others who provide mentoring? Many organisations have some form of mentoring. What makes us unique is that we include a mix of workshops with different themes like perseverance and willingness to learn. Typically, we begin with a workshop of around 10 to 15 students to give focus, say, on self-esteem. The workshop provides the general ways to build healthy self-esteem, after which, mentors will work with their mentees on more specific ways via breakout sessions. We feel that deeper learning occurs during the breakout sessions due to the personal attention mentors can give mentees. In addition, our undergraduates are both mentors and mentees, and professionals get the chance to network while helping future professionals. We believe these plus factors help differentiate us. What are some problems or challenges so far in starting vLink? Having completed both our primary school pilot and undergraduate mentoring pilot separately, our conceptual challenge is to bring both together in tandem. The operational challenge is to excite schools about our service. As a social enterprise, we have our own bottom line to take care of, so we do charge schools to cover operational costs, depending on the complexity of the programme. Hence, we face competition from other groups which offer pro-bono, after-school student care. We try to differentiate ourselves, but sometimes schools are unable to differentiate between tuition or after-school care and mentoring. At present, we are discussing collaborations with a few schools. Thankfully, they are receptive to our concept of mentoring, and appreciate being able to choose from a basket of modules. This proves that students in different schools have diverse needs! Where do you get your funding? Are you looking into grants? Are you a member of the Social Enterprise (SE) Association? Yes, we are looking for further grants. We have already received a one-time grant from Young Changemakers from the National Youth Council (NYC), and are looking for start-up grants for social enterprises. I have heard of SE Association, but we are not members of it, though we have benefitted from their comprehensive manual for social enterprise start-ups. How do you balance your studies and work with heading a social enterprise? Simply put: ‘Bite the bullet’. I often have to sacrifice sleep. You only get 24 hours a day, and something’s got to give. Sometimes, I miss classes to meet deadlines, and then I have to play catch-up. Luckily for me, university life is quite flexible in terms of timetables. After graduating, I plan to work on vLink full-time, as a paid staff. In the future, we’d like a dedicated full-time core team while continuing to engage mentors and students. Can you share one or two stories from your mentoring? In our primary school pilot, I mentored a rather hyperactive, clingy youth. It was challenging, but I remember at one of our last few sessions, we sat down to talk about his plans after graduation. I could see him struggling a lot; despite saying he would go for the Normal Technical stream, I could sense he wanted more than that. It’s sad that social expectations have influenced him such that it stifled his aspirations. Happily, he eventually chose the Normal Academic stream in a regular secondary school – a very good achievement considering his background. It’s only through mentoring that you see these issues; it showed me that ultimately, mentoring is about understanding a person’s life. The experience reinforced my calling. Do you think enough is being done to support social enterprises in Singapore? I think more support can be given to social enterprises beyond funding and guidance. One such area is in social impact measurement. It’s hard to find valid, reliable measures, as social impact is usually vague or unquantifiable. Also, now is a good time to build on our entrepreneurial infrastructure, such as with proper incubators. Look at tech start-ups and tech incubators – we need social incubators too! What have you learnt in building a social enterprise from the ground up? I used to see failures as imperfections. However, I now realise failures are necessary. Without failures, there will be no learning. And learning is so important to the growth of a social enterprise. No matter how brilliant your business plan may be, it will definitely change over time. So, do not fret overly over business plans. Just get your idea running and adjust accordingly! Are there any tips or advice you would give other budding social entrepreneurs? You must be kind of a rebel that won’t take a situation lying down. But of course, be a reasonable rebel. And really, persevere. At every step, you will meet challenges. Despite how cliché it sounds, never give up. Many social enterprises cannot survive the critical first two years, but once you do, it often becomes more smooth-sailing. Leverage on other people’s strengths. Find partners that complement you, support you, listen to you. Singapore’s social enterprise environment is actually quite vibrant; I’ve seen entrepreneurs as young as 16 daring to step out and innovate. Find networks of like-minded people to provide critique. For instance, go for pitching sessions organised by hyper-connectors. See if your idea gains traction – who knows, there might be a funder willing to invest in your idea! Especially for the younger ones, when facing doubts, ask yourself, “If not now, when?” After you graduate? After you get a family? My brother was interested in a social cause like me, but he already has a family. You can’t expect him to drop his commitments and devote as much time to the cause as I can – so if not now, when? This story was first published on SALT (www.salt.org.sg), an e-magazine by the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre. Additional info provided by cataloguer: The article is accompanied by a set of three photographs consisting of a close-up of four people's hands in a criss-crossed handshake, a half portrait of Jin Jing (left) and Ng Yong Hao, and a top view of two persons wearing canvas sneakers.