For the 5th year in a row, Project MALES (PM) dedicated the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as a day of service to honor his legacy by participating in our annual mentoring retreat. On Monday, January 16th, over 30 mentors, work-study students, University Leadership Network (ULN) interns, Project MALES staff and presenters kicked off the spring semester with a mentoring retreat to plan for the coming spring 2017 semester. Mentors, work-study students and interns participated in a variety of workshops and small group activities where they were asked to reflect and share about their own experiences as mentors and mentees.
Our UT student mentors participated in two personal development workshops led by Karen Novak, Linda Cavazos, and Loretta Taylor, from the Austin Independent School District (AISD). The AISD team provided our students with information regarding My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) Mentoring Program here in Austin by updating our students on what the Greater Austin Area MBK (GAAMBK) is doing in AISD to support our boys and men of color in the schools, and shared important insights and training focused on critical aspects of being a mentor via a variety of interactive exercises. The second workshop was led by Brittany Gibson, Director of Recruitment and Engagement with the Relay Graduate School. Brittany engaged our students in a dialogue about the power of mentoring, including developing healthy mentor/mentee relationships, the influence of mentoring, and how to put these new learned skills into practice.
As always, our 2017 Project MALES MLK Day retreat was a great success thanks to the commitment and dedication of our mentors, work-study students, ULN interns, guest speakers, and mentoring staff to serve our middle and high school boys and men of color at AISD. Stay tuned as we will be profiling our mentoring sites, mentoring events, and activities throughout the semester and summer.
