What is mentorship?

The term mentorship is derived from Homer’s Odyssey. Mentor was the name of the person Odysseus tasked to teach his son Telemachus when he left for the Trojan War in the eighth century BC.

From this came the traditional view of mentorship of a wise, more experienced person acting as an advisor to someone younger and less experienced. Time have changed, and at the National Mentorship Movement we see mentorship as a balanced relationship between mentors and mentees, built on trust, respect, and an equitable power structure through the desire and willingness of both parties to be open to learning from each other.

We define mentorship as follows:

Mentorship is a partnership and relationship between two (or more) people

to achieve mutually agreed upon goals

through the reciprocal sharing of knowledge, experience and wisdom.