CAR­OL QUASH

Pro­fes­sor Joan Pierre has been a men­tor for over 17 years—a du­ty she views as a hu­man­i­tar­i­an act that em­pow­ers in­di­vid­u­als with whom she shares her knowl­edge, sup­port and guid­ance, help­ing them to grow to reach their full po­ten­tial de­spite chal­lenges.

T&T-born Pierre, a lec­tur­er in the Jour­nal­ism, Writ­ing, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion De­part­ment of Health Sci­ence at LIU Brook­lyn, New York Uni­ver­si­ty, said, “Men­tor­ship is a process where in­di­vid­u­als trans­form them­selves to gain more con­fi­dence, am­bi­tion, re­silience and, most of all, au­then­tic­i­ty.”

She will be one of the men­tors for the in­au­gur­al two-month free on­line men­tor­ship pro­gramme for young women, HER Lega­cy Lab, host­ed by the founder of We Women El­e­vate, Mol­ly Creese. We Women El­e­vate is a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion that helps pre­pare young women to be the next gen­er­a­tion of fe­male lead­ers. The aim of Her Lega­cy Lab is to sup­port and em­pow­er young women as they nav­i­gate their per­son­al, aca­d­e­m­ic, and ear­ly pro­fes­sion­al jour­neys.

“The pro­gramme is de­signed to help par­tic­i­pants build con­fi­dence, de­vel­op lead­er­ship skills, and gain clar­i­ty about their pur­pose and fu­ture goals. Through guid­ed ses­sions, men­tor­ship cir­cles, and skill-build­ing work­shops, par­tic­i­pants are ex­posed to crit­i­cal top­ics such as self-aware­ness, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, ca­reer ex­plo­ration, fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy, and goal set­ting. Her Lega­cy Lab cre­ates a sup­port­ive en­vi­ron­ment where young women can learn, grow, and be­gin to see them­selves as ca­pa­ble lead­ers,” Pierre ex­plained.

The pro­gramme be­gins on March 18 and is open to young women ages 15 to 26 from any part of the world. Each par­tic­i­pant is paired with pro­fes­sion­als in var­i­ous fields who pro­vide guid­ance and in­sight to their ju­ve­nile mentees.

“Her Lega­cy Lab aims to cul­ti­vate the next gen­er­a­tion of con­fi­dent, pur­pose-dri­ven women who are pre­pared to lead, con­tribute to their com­mu­ni­ties and in­ten­tion­al­ly build their lega­cy.”

Pierre said that up­on reg­is­tra­tion, mentees com­mit to at­tend­ing the week­ly one-hour ses­sions, dur­ing which they will par­tic­i­pate open­ly in the dis­cus­sions and com­plete their week­ly re­flec­tion or ac­tion steps. They are al­so ex­pect­ed to be re­cep­tive to feed­back and growth, as well as to show com­mit­ment to their de­vel­op­ment. Par­tic­i­pants will al­so have ac­cess to a pri­vate group chat com­mu­ni­ty so they can con­nect be­yond the week­ly ses­sions. At the end of the pro­gramme, they will re­ceive a dig­i­tal cer­tifi­cate of com­ple­tion.

To reg­is­ter, click the link: https://we­wom­enel­e­vate.org/her-lega­cy-lab