An event linking mentors with young people took place Thursday in downtown Lexington. The Youth Engagement Summit at the Lyric Theatre featured 14 different mentoring organizations.
Phillip Mangah is youth program director for Common Good on North Limestone. It relies on 45 mentors each week. Mangah says young people are eager to form mentoring relationships. “They just need someone to be there for them. For you to be their sponge, just to soak everything that they have, that they have to offer. That’s pretty much what the joy of this work is all about, is making an impact every day and it’s contagious,” said Mangah.
Marcellous Lewis attended the summit. He said he had someone stand by him when he was young. Lewis said he’s definitely planning on becoming a mentor, it’s just a question of which organization to join. Lewis says the need for mentors is significant. “This day there are a lot of kids that don’t have that in their life. A lot of kids have broken homes, or it might just be the mother, and not the father figure around, and it’s needed, it’s needed,” noted Lewis.
Youth mentoring takes on many forms in the United States and in other countries. Yamukumba Mbayo is with the Upward Bound College Preparation program at Bluegrass Community and Technical College. Originally from the Congo, Mbayo says the mentoring philosophy in his African country is much like that in the U.S. “Actually we have a saying that says the ones that listen will know the way. It’s explaining that you need to listen because there’s somebody that knows, that can lead you, that can mentor you,” explained Mbayo.
One Lexington, which sponsored the event, was formed last summer to help address issues related to violent crime. One Lexington Director Laura Hatfield says the central Kentucky community has enough mentoring groups, just not enough mentors.? She says there are currently about 1,000 on a waiting list.
