Yesterday was 'Thank Your Mentor Day' and The Royal Gazette brought you three moving stories about mentors involved in Big Brothers & Big Sisters and how they are helping young people. But there is another mentoring group also working hard on the Island. Jessie Moniz reports.

A lot of people look to the greater community for the mentors that have helped them, but YouthNet executive director Clare Mello has found inspiration within her own family.

YouthNet is a school-based mentoring programme that matches students in school with mentors, who are volunteers from the community.

"There have certainly been many mentors in my life, but one of my life-long mentors is my younger sister, Carolyn Meyers," said Ms Mello.

"I would like to extend my thanks to her for always believing in me. If it wasn't for her, I actually wouldn't be at YouthNet. She was the one who said 'YES, you can!' not to steal from President Barack Obama.

"She was the one who encouraged me to take this step. She said 'this job is made for you'. She has always seen the potential in me that I have not necessarily been able to see in myself.

"That is what mentoring is all about. It is bringing forth the very best in people even when they can't see it themselves."

Ms Mello oversees about 750 mentor relationships in 24 schools across the Island through four different programmes.

These include an adult and child in-school mentoring programme, a reading programme, a peer mentorship programme that places 17-year-olds with their younger counterparts as mentors and a programme where people in the workplace mentor Bermudian university students via e-mail.

They are working on a fifth mentoring scheme that will bring senior school students into a workplace setting.

She said this year they kept Thank Your Mentor Day low-key with an advertisement in The Royal Gazette. "In the past we had events like receptions, but this year we were looking at prudent financial management," she said. "We also sent out an e-mail thanking our mentors this year. We thought it might be better to reutilise funds that would have been used for Thank Your Mentor Day into other parts of the programme, such as on more activities for our mentees and mentors to spend time together in the community."

YouthNet was founded in 1996 by Ernst & Young manager Cornell Fubler who was concerned about the plight of young people in the community.

"In nine years we have grown from one employee to a team of six," said Ms Mello. "If you think about it we are managing about 1,500 people including mentors and mentees."

She was particularly excited that YouthNet has brought several intergenerational projects on board.

"In our reading programme, our oldest mentor is 87 years old," said Ms Mello. "But you don't really have to be a senior to be a part of it. I read in that programme with other volunteers. I like to be in every programme if I can.

"With that one, we spend an hour a week reading with the primary ones and twos. That programme took off last year. We now have over 70 mentors and we need another 35. Schools are excited about this opportunity of having our seniors coming in and reading to the young people."

Ms Mello herself has two mentees at West Pembroke School and reads to four more children at Victor Scott Primary.

"I am also a peer mentor within YouthNet," said Ms Mello. "We have a programme within our own staff. Three of our staff are considered to be cusp-boomers, and the rest are millenials and Generation Xers.

"So we each mentor our younger staff members. We may be able to teach them certain strategies. In return, we are learning text messaging, technology short-cuts, and things like that."

For more information about YouthNet, check out their website at www.youthnet.bm or call them at 294-5300.