Mentoring in the Western Balkans is at very low levels. Most students graduating from EM courses often find themselves without much guidance available to them due to the lack of infrastructure that supports their development and integration into the workforce. Mentors can be a great source of support for prospective and existing students and for alumni. Project Connect wants to solve this problem by testing a pilot mentoring programme which brings together interested students and alumni. The two project coordinators have significant experience in mentoring of young people with a specific focus in European funded courses. The project will have a regional approach because the challenges and opportunities in the countries of the region are very similar. Equally, interregional mentoring will allow both mentors and mentees to learn more from each other and indeed exploring networking opportunities beyond their home countries. The project aims to: improve the self-confidence of mentees; increase knowledge transfer opportunities between mentors and mentees; provide meaningful volunteering opportunities for alumni; enable knowledge transfer to home countries from alumni based abroad and support brain gain initiatives; offer learning of new skills for mentors and mentees; improve networking for mentors and mentees and provide an opportunity for mentors to keep in touch and learn more about the region. This pilot project will last from April-October 2022 and it will assess the success of the mentoring relationships and the feasibility of the pilot to become a core part of the WBAA activities in the future.
