Where would most of us be if we hadn’t had mentors, advocates, and sponsors?

I have been fortunate enough to have had all three. One of the most crucial mentors I had was my 8th grade English teacher who believed in my dreams and set me on a path to achieve them. In college, I had a professor who pushed me to reach higher and dream bigger. During my years in the competitive media world, several critical advocates and sponsors helped me navigate challenges and find success.

My mentors have had a significant impact on my life, and I am grateful for their influence. When the opportunity arises, I accept the mission of becoming a mentor to others, recognizing the time commitment and intentionality required to create a lasting impact. In my book "Becoming a Dangerous Woman," I share my lessons learned about being an effective mentor and some observations about how to get what you need as a mentee, emphasizing the importance of understanding the roles and responsibilities of both parties for a successful mentoring relationship.

One of my most satisfying mentoring experiences came through a State Department / Vital Voices mentorship program about 15 years ago that paired women leaders in the US with emerging leaders in the Global South. I was asked to mentor two extraordinary young women, Juliet Asante from Ghana and Catalina Escobar from Colombia. Juliet was already a media star in her country but wanted to optimize her experience with a bigger platform than television and film. I’ll write about Juliet and her story another time.

This week, I want to share the journey I took with Catalina Escobar.

Catalina had launched a nonprofit in Colombia called the Juanfe Foundation and was already offering an innovative model of care, education, and job training that was disrupting a cycle of violence in families and communities resulting in unwanted teen pregnancies and intergenerational poverty.

When Catalina and I met, I was deeply impressed by her passion for the work, fueled in part by the loss of her own son, Juanfe, and by what she was witnessing in the vulnerable communities in Cartagena where she lived at the time.

As we began our sessions together, in person and long distance, her questions for me were always thoughtful and thought provoking, and I realized early on that the learning in this mentorship would be a two-way street (as all good mentorships are!). On my first visit to meet Catalina and see the work at the foundation headquarters in Cartagena, I witnessed the very evident transformations in the lives of the girls in Juanfe’s 360-degree program which she designed to be non-residential but which touched every aspect of their lives from psychosocial work to parenting skills to specific training and job placement.

Catalina didn’t need my help in designing her program or services, but what she did need from our mentorship was to strategize together about how to cultivate a greater awareness of the challenges for adolescent girls in her country and throughout Latin America, and generate more support outside of Colombia for this important work. Very quickly, I realized that her work could serve as a model for other countries struggling with high rates of teen pregnancies and the interconnected cycles of violence and poverty.

To elevate Cata’s model of care and to learn more from others in similar work, we decided to launch a annual global forum in Bogota, Colombia, calling  it “Women Working for the World” (WW4W).

Our first forum was in 2014. A small group of mostly Colombian women convened to listen to talks and panels from women working and leading in various social justice work from around the world. My responsibility was to bring a delegation of American women,  to visit the vulnerable communities that the Juanfe Foundation served in order to see the work up-close and personal in Cartagena, and then to share their own work and learnings at the Forum in Bogota.

The forum wasn’t intended only to raise awareness and support for Juanfe, although it has done that, but also to facilitate deeper connections among people working to improve the lives of girls and women around the world. Notably, WW4W also welcomes men who are actively working towards ending violence and promoting greater opportunities for girls, irrespective of their birthplace or current location.

The WW4W forum has grown from that small circle of advocates 10 years ago to be widely viewed as the one of the most important conferences in Colombia. This year it was a two-day event with over 50 speakers and panels attracting more than 700 people, mostly from Colombia but also other Latin American countries, Europe and the US. Hundreds came by bus from distant indigenous communities and I brought a small US delegation, as I have done for the last decade. Every year, attendees are deeply inspired and impressed by the work they witness at the Juanfe Foundation headquarters in Cartagena and Medellin, and the work they learn about at the forum.

Juanfe now has programs in many other cities and even other countries in Latin America and along with the in-person WW4W, the Juanfe team also created an online platform, juanfe.org, which further expands the reach of these programs and shared learnings.

Over 6,000 girls have successfully completed the program, with an impressive 80% completing their education and securing promising employment opportunities. Additionally, Juanfe's programs provide comprehensive support for young mothers, ensuring the well-being of their children with day care while equipping them with the skills necessary for self-sufficiency. Through Juanfe's reproductive rights and health education initiatives, the girls gain the knowledge and tools to prevent future pregnancies, a crucial step in their journey out of poverty and towards financial independence.

Juanfe has also expanded its work with teen mothers to take in hundreds of the Venezuelan women who have been forced to immigrate to safety in Colombia. Cata has designed a special program for them that prepares them for productive lives in their new country. At the WW4W forum, we also learned about the Colombian government's policies for welcoming and integrating the four million Venezuelans who have sought refuge there in the past couple of years — learnings that I believe would ease the challenges and conflict at the borders here in the US.

While the word "mentorship" has been overused and the concept weakened by weak and unfocused programs, my tenth visit to Catalina, WW4W and the Juanfe Foundation strengthened my conviction in the transformative power of long-term mentorship relationships. Mentorships thrive when they are founded on aligned aspirations and realistic expectations about outcomes, and a fundamental element is the shared values that anchor the commitment to each other and the collaborative work.

Having the chance to work with Catalina and Juanfe and invite others to experience the work is a privilege. With a long-term commitment to each other and clear expectations and goals, we identified a way to raise awareness of the challenges Juanfe addresses in Latin America and how its model can be exported to impact women and girls worldwide. This recognition is important because it emphasizes that effective solutions and tested models of change exist and can be implemented in various communities and nations.

I regret not having more time to be a mentor these days, but I’m hoping that in some ways, this weekly posting is a form of passing along knowledge and experiences that can be considered mentoring — it’s in that spirit that I write, share and learn. It's worth emphasizing that becoming a mentor doesn't necessitate a formal program. Take advantage of opportunities in your workplace and community to guide others.

I believe that mentoring — modeling support and advocacy for each other in every situation or opportunity — is one of the most powerful ways we move forward as women and men working for a better world.

Onward!

- Pat

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