Mentorship In Action

The Cause

Candora has served Northeast Edmonton for over 35 years, providing grassroots community resources, learning programs, family programs, etc., and has been a pillar of the greater Beverly Community. The community of Beverly has one of the highest rates of poverty and single parent households in the entire city. Candora has made it our mission to provide the resources, support, and mentorship to this community to help end the cycles of generational poverty. Over our history, we have helped thousands of individuals and families, and many have shown their gratitude by volunteering for Candora and many have become staff members (including a third of our personnel currently).
We have been very fortunate as organization to have strong support from the business community in our area as well as more affluent members of the community including retired professionals and tradespeople, and unofficial community ambassadors of all ages. It is this group of people that we are seeking to harness for this project in specific areas:

1. At risk youth boys (ages 12-17)
Candora operates the Beverly Men's Group which runs a weekly ball hockey game at the Abbotsfield Rec Centre. The group has men of all ages and is coordinated by the staff member who started the group. The group have decided that once a month, they will invite at-risk boys to join the men's group to play hockey with them (as well as other sports/activities). The purpose is to develop positive male role models that will have an impact on their self-esteem and decision making skills. With our community having a high proportion of single mother homes as well as petty crime committed by youth, these positive male mentors can be the difference between a boy becoming a community leader or being repeatedly incarcerated. The facilitator of this group is someone who, himself benefitted from strong mentorship like this and he now works in many areas of Candora where he provides that mentorship to young males.

2. Adults with barriers to employment
Many community members have barriers to meaningful employment. We have operated an employment prep program for over 15 years. Mentorship from members of the community who can build relationships with participants and practical guidance in career growth and lifestyle would improve success rates immensely. We would like to harness our business community and retirees to provide one-on-one support to address individual barriers and provide encouragement throughout their journey.

Who Will it Benefit?

The mentorship program will primarily benefit the community of Beverly. As described previously, this group of neighborhoods has one of the highest rates of poverty and single parent households in Edmonton. Not only are the individuals facing these circumstances impacted by them, but the community as a whole. There is a direct correlation between these issues and crime/safety, which in turn has many other negative outcomes for communities. Youth and young adult males make up the vast majority crime in these communities, so offering greater opportunities for engagement, positive mentorship, and organized activities for this demographic can reduce the opportunities for these types of things to occur.

The participants and their families are the direct beneficiaries of this project in both cases. We often do not consider how whole families benefit from programs focused on individuals, however, families often directly benefit from the positive changes of the individual. Generationally passed-down lifestyles, attitudes, and habits become replaced with positive habits that become role-modeled for younger generations who break cycles of generational poverty, crime, etc.

Also, the mentors benefit from developing leadership skills as well as simply enriching their own lives by doing something good for the community and for others.