For the month of February, Think Africa in collaboration with the International Working Women of Finland, Mothers in Business (MiB) ry, The Shortcut, SAMHA, International Professionals Finland and Mastering Finland embarked on a social media campaign #impactfinland2022 (see campaign on LinkedIn) to raise awareness towards mentoring, coaching and peer support group activities for foreigners in Finland.
We have been organising mentorship programs for several years. In 2015 we organised a mentorship program for artists of immigrant background. Feedback showed that the program broadened their career perspectives as Singer-Songwriter Bossina shared in this article. In 2019, we launched a mentorship program for unemployed and underemployed foreigners in Finland.
The program supports those seeking to enter their field of training by increasing their professional networks, skills through one-on-one mentoring and training, and wellbeing through peer support. In addition, we launched a mentoring and tutoring program for youths of African descent aged 9 to 18 called YEPP (Youth Educational Performance Program).
“A good mentor can have a lasting impact on his or her mentee’s life, i.e. from providing valuable encouragement, guidance, and advice to connecting with the right people, affiliates and opportunities. Ultimately, it’s the mentee, who has to take bold steps and build upon a mentor’s advice and useful connections.”
What has been the impact of this program?
Here are some of the mentees and mentors who have been part of the program and what they have to say about their journey and the program.
Aderemi Fayoyiwa – mentee
She is a Nigerian with a PhD in Computational Chemistry from the University of Eastern Finland. According to her, “I enrolled in the program because I was transitioning from research to tech. I had a great experience with the program and my biggest take-away from the program is to put in the work and to trust the process.
“I am currently a senior cloud developer at Basware in Espoo and I apply some of the lessons I learnt from the program to my job. My advice to potential participants is to try to eliminate inhibitions to connecting with their mentors. My mentor was amazing, very helpful and hands-on.”
Florence Adiamah – mentee
A native of Ghana, and she has been living in Finland for almost four years. Florence has nurtured her skills in communication design, marketing and software development.
“I was planning to start my journey in software development and needed some guidance and advice to prepare me for the job market. I was in search of a mentor with an IT background. To fill knowledge on employee expectations and how to meet them as an applicant.”
Currently, she works at a software consulting company in Helsinki. “During the mentorship program, I picked up values like resilience and perseverance which are needed in many aspects of life, and I am happy to say I am applying these values at work.”
Bancy Kinyua – mentor
“Remembering the difficulties I went through at the beginning of my career while searching for jobs with limited Finnish language skills, and that I had nobody to offer me any support, when Think Africa made a call for mentors, I immediately felt deep in my heart that I need to hold a brother’s or sister’s hand in their job hunting process.
I was matched with a mentee having a background in clinical research, pharmaceutical industry and health technology. Even though we were totally from different fields (my background is in nursing) and this made it hard for us at the beginning, we finally found our connection.
The focus was on searching for suitable job openings and suitable events where the mentee could sell her ideas, hence increasing chances of finding a job. To break the pressure associated with job hunting, we would sometimes meet for a coffee and focus our discussion on other matters relating to daily life struggles and offer emotional support.”
However, during the mentoring process, Bancy learned that mentorship is a comprehensive process, and the focus shouldn’t only be on job searching but should also encompass emotional and psychological support to make the whole process successful and holistic.
Bancy is originally from Kenya. She moved to Finland about 11-years ago as an international student. Within these 11 years, she has managed to pursue two degrees; Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing and Master’s Degree in Global Development and Management in Healthcare.
Jukka Toivanen – mentor
“I participated in the Think Africa mentoring program as a data science mentor from Nitor and supported the program’s mentees specialising in data science, machine learning and analytics.”
According to him, “A major part of the mentoring was, however, to have weekly one-to-one meetings between the mentor and mentee. In these meetings, we focused heavily on searching for suitable job openings and thinking about the skills needed and how to develop those skills further.
“We also put a lot of emphasis on discussing the technical skill requirements for data science and analytics jobs and looking for material for skill development. In addition, we practised technical interviews that are common to software development and data science fields as well as typical job scenarios with examples.”
“Serving as a mentor is also a good way to widen professional networks and deepen professional skills as you will reflect on your lessons learned in the professional field. All in all, as a mentor, I found the mentoring experience very useful and also instructive. One of my mentees also succeeded in landing an industry position in the analytics field.”
Jukka is a Data Scientist whose interests lie in using scientific methodology, mathematics/statistics and machine learning to solve practical problems and gain insight from data. In his spare time he likes running, reading books, and making music.
“Mentorship isn’t a one-way street. Like all relationships, the communication goes both ways, so mentors can learn from their mentees through knowledge sharing and vice versa.” Bancy Kinyua
If you wish to join our mentorship program, contact us at info@thinkafrica.fi or call or whatsapp us at 050 533 4444
