News in 2022

FIG Mentoring Programme - Pilot Programme

8 March 2022

The Pilot Mentoring Programme aims for the Africa Regional Network (ARN) and Young Surveyors Network (YSN) to run a mentoring program across Africa, using the Surveying & Spatial Sciences Institute, Australia, (SSSI) Mentoring Program IP as a model, to understand the elements required to make mentoring programs a success within this context.
The end goal is to be able to scale up the mentoring programme for more participants within Africa and to provide a model of delivery which may be replicated in other regions of the world.

What is the mentoring program

This pilot programme is a joint mentoring programme undertaken by the FIG Young Surveyors Network (YSN) and the FIG African Regional Network (ARN). It aims at engaging the youth leading to their integration into our professional and workplace structures providing them with opportunities and to promote resilience in the profession. This pilot will allow the FIG YSN and the FIG ARN to work collaboratively in exploring the ways to bring young and seasoned surveyors together as well as managing the programme for further upscaling. The pilot has been developed with conceptual and strategic support from the Australian SSSI Mentoring Programme, which has run since 2017.

Background

One of the ways of sustaining any profession is not just the transfer of skills, but also the institutional memory of the profession - the intergenerational transfer of knowledge, experience and inspiration towards building a stronger future. A mentoring programme is an important way of transferring the institutional memory of the profession, to support the future of the profession, and bring surveyors all over the world closer.

The development of the mentoring programme began at the 2016 FIG Working Week in Christchurch, where the concept of the mentoring programme was developed. At the 2017 FIG Working Week in Helsinki, the mentoring workshop, “Who Mentors You?” centered around facilitated working groups involving young surveyors and FIG members to resolvethe issues and questions identified in the first workshop in a collaborative way. The results of these workshops were documented and used to produce the FIG YSN Mentoring toolkit, meant to guide young surveyors in the development of mentoring programmes in their regions. During the 1st Young Surveyors African Meeting in Gaborone, Botswana, in 2018, a workshop was facilitated on the development of a mentoring programme for African Young Surveyors.

The Surveying & Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) of Australia developed the concept for a structured mentoring programme in 2017, and has been running an international mentoring program with success from 2018. Over this time, over 700 mentors and mentees across the world over this time have participated, including strong participation from African countries. SSSI has responded to the approach from FIG Africa Regional Network (ARN) and FIG Young Surveyors Network (YSN) with the intent of strategically supporting the development of a mentoring programme that can be piloted in Africa, that is tailored to the cultural context and specific career pathway focus of potential mentors and mentees in African countries. Discussions with the SSSI Mentoring Programme committee and SSSI CEO Tony Wheeler have extended to an agreement that the SSSI Mentoring Programme team is happy to provide this support alongside appropriate acknowledgement of team members and of the mentoring programme IP that is being shared.

Structure of the Pilot Programme

The number of participants will be limited to 50 i.e., 25 mentors and 25 mentees.The possibility of group mentoring will not be explored in the pilot project phase. The selection of mentors and mentees will be based on the answers given in the formsfrom the call for participants. The ARN will lead in the identification of mentors for the pilot. Matching of mentors and mentees will be based upon the experiences from the process used in the SSSI Mentoring Programme and based on the participants’ geographical region and preferences of the participants as indicated in their response to the call.

Read more about the programme here (pdf)
In the pdf you can read more about the programme and the time line for the pilot.

Apply now

Apply to be a mentor: https://forms.gle/qkyT2cpE3odReqkR8
Apply to be a mentee: https://forms.gle/vkNLoBuPZEEEcBTA8

Applications close midnight March 22, 2022

Key contacts

  • Kwabena Asiama, Chair, FIG Young Surveyors Network
  • Jennifer Whittal, Chair, FIG African Regional Network
  • Adewebi Olumide, FIG African Regional Network
  • Shirley Chapunza, FIG African Regional Network
  • David Elegbede, FIG Young Surveyors Network
  • Roshni Sharma, SSSI-YP, Australia/FIG Young Surveyors Network
  • Ferah Koksal, Vice Chair, FIG Young Surveyors Network

 

 

Louise Friis-Hansen
8 March 2022