First Lady announces White House mentor program

November 2, 11:58 PMWhite House ExaminerWamara Mwine

A small group of 10^th and 11^th grade high school girls walked into the State Room today in the East Wing to sit down with their new 18 White House mentors. First Lady Michelle Obama  followed and spoke about the importance of mentoring. This program is set to have mentors meet with these students from public and private schools in Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C. once a month through August.

Jocelyn Frye, the first lady’s policy director, arranged the program.  “Jocelyn was the person, along with her team, who helped pull this together and to identify schools and to talk to you all and to work to get the mentors,” Mrs. Obama noted. “Well, everyone is going to be assigned someone, and you'll meet your mentor today when we break up,” the first lady said.  “But we're going to be coming together as a group on a regular basis,” she pledged.

I watched as the First Lady discussed how it was important for the girls to feel comfortable at the White House. It is a challenging thing to have these young women mentor with busy White House staff like Senior White House Advisor Valerie Jarrett, who made her entrance abruptly after the First Lady took the podium.  White House Director of Domestic Policy Melody Barnes was also in attendance today. Dr. Jill Biden, Chairwoman of the White House Economic Advisers Christina Romer and White House Director of Climate and Energy Carol Browner are three others involved in the program that did not attend.

“I mean, these are not just women who are busy in their own professional rights, but these are women who have their own family lives, their hectic schedules and running from here to there,” the first lady said. The secret of any successful pilot program like this is defining the rules of engagement. Mainly, should the students or mentors initiate contact? Who will be responsible for identifying and implementing opportunities for exposure to events? Who will return calls? Any successful program will have to make these questions clear on both sides.

The press was ushered away after the discussion was opened up for questions. The students seemed a bit reluctant as numerous cameras flashed. Mrs. Obama made it clear that the cameras and correspondents would be leaving, so a more frank conversation could commence. She did say that having the media on hand today was important to spread the news of this effort.  “We think it's important enough that this nation knows that we're doing this because we can do this all over the country, and we hope to see this kind of model,” the first lady said.

Afterward, I went online and found a number of sites for mentoring. My favorite seemed to be Peer Resources which had a lengthy list of books on mentoring that you can see here. Michelle Obama also encouraged the high school girls to mentor their younger classmates. “If you know 5th-graders, kids in elementary school, your job is to be that model for them.  That's all we ask of you,” she told the girls who listened intently. The White House says a mentoring program for boys was going to be launched soon.

Quotes on Mentoring:

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” – Mother Theresa

“One of things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people.”—Dick Gregory