The saying that the measure of a society is how it treats the most vulnerable can also be applied to the business environment and say that the measure of a business class is how it uses its potential to help and develop young generations, supporting them at the stage of entering professional life. Youth mentoring, conducted by experienced businessmen, is one of the forms of support that teenagers can use when thinking about their future careers.

Successful people want to share their knowledge and experience

What distinguishes mentoring projects from schools is the fact that such meetings are conducted by experienced businessmen and managers who have a need to share their knowledge and experience. Young participants in the programmes therefore have a unique opportunity to get to know entrepreneurship from the practical side, but also much more consciously choose your career path. It is often only during meetings with mentors that they realize how important it is to choose the right studies, participate in internship programs and choose the right extracurricular activities that will allow them to enter adulthood. In a situation where schools do not provide practical knowledge or the opportunity to properly discern their own abilities, such programs can help young people see their own qualities, discover their passions and manage their lives accordingly.

Mentoring programs are a mission that the managers involved in them have and feel, which is why they are most often classes for which participants pay a maximum of several hundred zlotys per semester. Participation in The Grade , a Gdańsk project partially implemented in the Olivia Business Centre, costs PLN 100 per semester, in Avenue PLN 200, and thanks to the EU support and ministerial funds of the Career Accelerator – a program for the development of social comecies run by 04 Coworking is a free program. As a result, they do not socially exclude any of the groups of young people, and even more: they open up opportunities for teenagers who do not have the opportunity to benefit from the support of the scientific or business community on a daily basis.

At the same time, engaging in activities with a mission can also bring many benefits to companies and to the mentors themselves. This is confirmed by Maciej Kamiński, one of the mentors involved in The Grade project: These classes give me incredible satisfaction and fulfillment. The Grade program is a continuation of my social passions. In this way, I was able to combine my passions in life: working with young people with this vitality and energy, dedicated to strengthening and extracting their potential and accompanying them in their search for their place on Earth.

The heart of mentoring beats in office buildings

Olivia Business Centre has become the heart of the Tri-City mentoring programmes, as as many as three such projects are implemented in its area.

The Grade is aimed at boys between the ages of 13 and 19. It is intended to help them enter adulthood and enable them to properly manage their life path and career, for example by choosing the right field of study. The program is carried out in groups (individual meetings are also held), and each participant is assigned their own guide – mentor. Classes are held every two weeks, and all are taught by speakers experienced in the field.

Mentors are most often managers from companies gathered in Olivia Business Centre, as well as external experts who have run their own enterprises, project management, but also business psychologists, financiers and investment advisors. The Grade is a unique project that opens up new opportunities for participants at a very crucial stage of life, when their attitudes and values are formed. The essence of The Grade program consists of a number of factors – says Maciej Kamiński. First of all, young people have at their disposal the knowledge and experience of fantastic mentors who share their life experience. Secondly, the very attractive formula of the program itself, which provides the opportunity to meet interesting and inspiring people, offers the opportunity to engage in interesting initiatives, as well as make friends with like-minded peers. And above all, it is a great alternative to spending time in front of a computer or TV.

The same is true of a similar project called Avenue, aimed at young high school students. The mentors and participants are only women who feel fulfilled professionally and privately and are willing to share their knowledge and time with high school students. The curriculum includes topics such as proactivity – motivating girls to actively and consciously go through high school education, time management, finances, negotiations, building conscious relationships or leadership in a group.

Maciej Kamiński emphasizes that adolescence is the most critical period of life and that is why mentors focus on young people at this age. It is during the high school period that we define who we are and decide in which direction we are headed. In today’s fast-paced, changeable, unpredictable world, it is very difficult for young people to find answers to these questions. In addition, if you do not have well-established values, it is very easy to get lost in all of this. The support of an adult, mature person who shares his or her wisdom and experience in this process is priceless – sums up Maciej Kamiński.

The program, in which experience and knowledge are acquired by young people aged 15-29, willing to develop themselves, is Career Accelerator, Led by Martyna Czarnobaj-Borowska with O4 Coworking, based in Olivia Business Centre. The main goal of the accelerator is to develop the participants’ social competences through their participation in workshops, trainings and meetings with mentors, coaches or businessmen running their own companies. The distinguishing feature of the program is the final development of an idea for a social initiative, action or other activity that shapes social attitudes or encourages action. Over the course of 18 months, the participants prepared projects that often surprised the members of the jury with their professionalism and ingenuity, who finally evaluated the complex ideas of the high school students. Among them were projects in the field of ecology, psychology, promotion of healthy food, education and culture. At the networking meeting at the end of the project, I saw with my own eyes how amazing progress these young people have made, how well they have developed their competences. They gained experience, gained more self-confidence and opened up to other people. I am convinced that all of them will receive certificates confirming the development of social competences, which they applied for while implementing projects. – says project coordinator Martyna Czarnobaj-Borowska.

However, competence and career are not everything

However, certificates are not the most important goals of participants and organizers of mentoring projects. According to Natalia, one of the participants of the Career Accelerator program, the evolution they have undergone during the program has allowed them to look at their competences and life plans in a completely different way: We remember that day when, full of stress and uncertainty, we entered one of the buildings of Olivia Business Centre for the first time and we did not know how to operate the elevator because we had to use an access card. Little, lost girls for the first time in the big corporate world. The Career Accelerator exceeded our wildest expectations, as it gave us much more than just the development of social competences. The whole workshop part, the trainers, the level of organization and care for us, the participant is one big cosmos! Another Accelerator participant, Adrianna, speaks in a similar vein: “It was an amazing adventure that will definitely stay in my heart for the rest of my life. The skills we have gained have simply become a part of me and will be useful in my further development. I’ve met a lot of wonderful people for whom I’m very grateful. For the fact that everyone gives as much as they can and contributed to the project. I will have fond memories of this whole period of the project

When analysing the effects of programmes, mentors assess their goals from a slightly different perspective. For them, the most important thing is the values and the more long-term benefits that the participants derive from them: We have at least 2 layers of understanding of the term “success” here . – says Maciej Kamiński. On the one hand, it will be the choice of one’s life path, perhaps the direction of study, the improvement of personal effectiveness and discipline on the way to achieving the planned goals. But there is also a deeper layer to this issue. Young people, through confrontation with mature adults, have an undeniable opportunity to look at life from a broader perspective, to think about what will really determine their happiness in life. Are you climbing the career ladder? Or maybe strengthening deep family relationships? Participants of the meetings often answer the question whether the concept of “success” defined by the current society is what they really want. And in this regard, I have in my mind a few examples of young teenagers who, as a result of contact with The Grade, have reoriented their goals. They went in a direction more in line with their natural talents, dreams, and not necessarily the expectations and pressures of the environment. And that’s a real reason to be proud!

There are certainly hundreds of mentoring programs across the country. The effects of those conducted in the environment associated with Olivia Business Centre indicate that young people should not be afraid to look for opportunities for themselves in the environment of modern companies and office buildings. Just surfing the websites of business centers and researching opportunities, social programs or other support initiatives can be an inspiring activity, and maybe even the beginning of a new life path.