Empower Her: Why Mentorship Matters?
By: Priyanka Jaisinghani
On the top right-hand corner of my laptop screen, the date flashed March 29, 2017. I was a few minutes early to my video call, eagerly awaiting to connect with my mentee. This was going to be our first call, and I couldn’t wait to learn more about her and how I could best support her. I was one of the first 16 pairs for our inaugural GirlsFTW cohort. I was based in New York, and my mentee was based in Florida. We both came from different backgrounds, industries, and walks of life — as were the rest of the girls in our program, and that made this experience so much more enriching.
Growing up across different cultures and countries — India, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, and the United States — equipped me with a global mindset from an early age. By the time I was 16, I witnessed India’s booming economy that struggled with poverty, Mexico’s developing economy that struggled with drugs, and the United Arab Emirate’s riches and comforts that struggled with women’s equality. Throughout all my travels, I’ve witnessed that irrespective of geography, girls face similar issues worldwide, and continue to remain on unequal footing — and that’s something that needs to change.
The beginning of GirlzFTW:
While women are more empowered in the year 2020, we are far behind where we need to be. In 2017, instead of waiting for times to change, we (Nicol Perez, Priyanka Jaisinghani, and Amanda Arevalo) took things into our own hands and started shaking things up. Instead of posting another #girlpower social media post, or signing another petition, we were driven to find a tangible way to support women. To truly progress, we need a more united front by providing the right tools for girls making a ripple in the tide.
A week before International Women’s Day we designed a website, asked our most inspiring friends to become mentors, created a curriculum, and launched applications for mentees — all in seven days.
Girls from all over the world applied to the program. We chose a final 16 mentees hailing from India, Canada, and all around the U.S. and paired them with badass female leaders. We hosted a speaker series to learn from inspiring women. We shared awkward moments, insecurities, fights with our parents. We talked about how to get into college, how to build a killer resume, what feminism means to us. We watched inspiring TED Talks, started bullet journals, and planned our visions for the year. We supported each other.
Why does mentorship matter?
Today, girls in our program represent over 73 different countries. Our mentors hail from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, India, Argentina, Jamaica, Canada, Morocco, the United Kingdom, and dozens of other countries. From the thousands of applications we receive, there’s a common thread that weaves them all together. Whether our mentor is a marketing maverick at Buzzfeed, a Facebook content strategist, a mental health professional, a global nomad working in emergency relief, or even a young activist — they’re driven to build a better world for women.
But why does mentorship matter? Mentorship is a two-way interaction, whether you are mentoring or being mentored. Through both interactions, mentorship has the ability to open doors. By stepping through these new doors, we’re able to see new opportunities and possibilities that elevate us and accelerate our own growth. We believe that education and mentorship provide immeasurable access to resources that most cannot find in everyday institutions. Within our own mentorship program, we strive to provide girls with the motivation, confidence, and an extended community of women to gain new skills. We’re strengthening the visibility and collective voices of girls on a global scale.
Through our interactions with our girls, we’ve also seen how providing girls with a sense of community, confidence, and support can make the world of a difference. The role of a mentor doesn’t require having all the answers (and none of our mentors do). We believe that you can’t become what you can’t see, and we’re widening the possibilities. Within our program, not all girls are matched to mentors within the same region. When we transcend borders, both are able to learn about each other’s cultures, obstacles that girls face in that region, and find new ways to tackle problems.
When you ask the question “what does mentorship mean to you”, you’ll find varying answers (depending on who you ask). For us, mentorship allows us to build a community of women who are driven to support and empower each other. As we continue to look at news headlines from around the world, we know there’s a lot more work ahead of us to build a more equal world for women. So, with our heads held high and a deep sense of urgency, we’re marching towards the future we want.
