The Mentoring Youth Program (United Nations) 

Mentoring Youth (or Mentoring Malaysia, MM) is a Positive Youth Development program developed and directed by Dr Brendan Gomez and was funded by the United Nations (UNICEF).

​MY is multi-faceted intervention based on the foundations of Prevention Science. Its aim is to help decrease psychosocial distress in adolescents and increase psychosocial wellbeing. 

With the cooperation of the school system, adolescents are provided with:

• mentors / youth that are trained & supervised in skills to nurture positive development
• structured and interesting positive opportunities for learning ie Social-Emotional Learning (SEL/EQ) activities, zoo animal-enrichment activities, and production & acting activities.
• developmentally-friendly & creative positive places that nurture healthy development - including nature, school-settings, university-settings, zoos, and performing arts studio. ​

Many adolescents expressed the following benefits and changes due to MY that were captured using qualitative assessments and interviews:

• Being shy before and now having more confidence to voice out among their peers
• Having few people to talk to before and now having more positive friends, even among peers of other ethnicities. 
• Appreciating the kind-heartedness, good advice and encouragement of their youth mentors
• Enjoying and learning from Mentoring Malaysia activities, and finding it different from usual school co-curricular activities.
• Finding fun and learning values in working as a team and in helping others, while having a healthy spirit of competition between teams.

Here's what our mentors (undergraduate volunteers) said about their experience and learnings in The Mentoring Youth Program:

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Dr Brendan & ARCCADE Staff Reflections & Learnings on our Pilot efforts