Shaping Tomorrow’s Women Through Mentoring

Shaping Tomorrow’s Women Through Mentoring

By: Alicia Vanderschuere

Why Mentoring Matters

Successful women know how important the support and encouragement of a mentor—during childhood or early in a career—can be. In fact, almost 70% of women in U.S. Congress and more than half of women business owners were involved in Girl Scouts where mentors helped them learn leadership skills and build confidence and character.

Starting the mentoring relationship early in a girl’s life encourages a life-long desire to seek out influential people as mentors, and breaks down the barriers of pride or competition that can interfere with women asking for guidance.

Leave a Legacy

Mentoring a young woman may not only change a girl’s life, but it can better the life of her children and her community.

The book The Person Who Changed My Life, by Mentoring USA founder Matilda Raffa Cuomo, asks some of the most successful people in America who influenced them. The book includes accounts from Hillary Rodham Clinton, Nora Ephron, Geraldine Ferraro, Maya Lin, and Diane Sawyer.

In the book, Good Morning America host Robin Roberts cites her mother’s mentor, Wilma Schnegg, as the greatest influence in her life. Even though Roberts never met the woman who helped her mother get into college, the guidance Schnegg gave Roberts’ mother long ago had an effect that spilled over into the next generation.

To read the article originally posted April 22nd, 2013 click here.