Ehrlo Sport Venture has teamed up with The Regina Intersectoral Partnership (TRiP) to help our city’s most vulnerable youth in a new way. TRiP is an initiative designed to improve community safety and well-being in Regina.
“TRiP just released their stats for the year, and it was identified that mentorship is a big area that isn’t being reached,” explained Amanda McConnell, Sport Venture manager. “It’s a big gap in their programming.”
Thus, the multi-sectoral mentorship program was born.
The program will see youth identified by TRiP as most in need of mentoring with caring, interested adults hired by Sport Venture. Each mentor will spend between 12 and 24 hours per month with their mentee doing pro-social activities and simply spending time together.
“Even something as simple as taking these kids to Sport Venture’s free sports leagues – for some kids, just having someone there to watch them or take them for hot chocolate after is important,” Amanda said. “(The mentors will) just be sort of that caring adult that some of these kids may be lacking – it goes a long way even just having someone ask ‘how was your day’?”
Overall, Amanda hopes that the program will provide the youth with opportunities for self-esteem and confidence building, as well as teaching them social skills and ways to connect with the community so that they may continue to experience the program’s benefits even after it has wrapped up.
“We’re hoping to help build some capacity within the youth,” Amanda said. “If a mentor helps to get a youth involved in a community activity the hope is that maybe they would keep on with it because now they’re comfortable and have formed that relationship.”
The program was funded by Amanda’s connection to the Regina Sport District, which dissolved and distributed its funding to various programs throughout the city.
The multi-sectoral mentorship program will run from February to the end of August, encompassing the summer months where many programs that TRiP’s youth participate in take breaks or have reduced hours.
