LOVE LETTERS TO TANZANIA: Who would you choose to mentor?

Readers may be familiar with success literature which promises the secrets to becoming a “winner”. Aspiring entrepreneurs and those trying to emulate the triumphs of the latest app developer billionaire can choose from many books and seminars which simplify the complex path to success. One “simple step” frequently cited is to find a mentor. The common claim is that finding a good mentor will change your life. Well, if this were entirely and universally true, the number of billionaires should have grown proportionately with the number of publications sharing the secret formulas for financial success.

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that mentorships are usually beneficial. If we aspire to goals which differ from the paths our parents or elders took, we definitely profit from the advice and guidance of someone who has travelled the same path before. Mentors in turn benefit from this potentially rewarding experience which may validate their expertise – especially if the mentee succeeds.

In this unfair world, the definition of success is of course not the same for all. While some aspire to wealth or luxury, others’ big hope is to access education and find employment which enables a dignified and healthy life, free from fear or repression of brutal regimes. Some simply hope to escape abject poverty. Sadly though, for the youngsters born into social and financial hardship who desperately want to turn around their fortune, genuine advice and guidance are much harder to find.

The prospect of publishing a guide out of ghettos, which financially disadvantaged youngsters could barely afford, is not lucrative enough to attract authors’ favour.

The more privileged the mentors, the more likely they are to support the kind of protégé who is most like them and already likely to succeed. Perhaps it is human nature to want to help those who resemble us. Perhaps we simply cannot evade an element of self-interest. So, picking a mentee who shows great promise, many mentors – perhaps subconsciously – set themselves up to take credit if their protégé succeeds.

Why not boast about our contributions to humankind if our protégé is likely to become a future Nobel Prize winner or business tycoon? Perhaps a protégé could not only surpass our own achievements and income but also demonstrate gratefulness via some sort of payback?

A few noble souls, however, impress society be stepping out of their comfort zone to help someone who really needs support, perhaps even someone in violent neighbourhoods like the Cape Flats or Detroit’s Eastside, far from prestigious schools. In such areas, where the cycle of disadvantage is exceptionally hard to break without a helping hand, we find the most inspiring mentors.

Some of them understand their own privilege and seek to create a fairer world. Others may have escaped poverty themselves - or a culture of violence or abuse entrenched for generations. Whoever they are, whatever motivates them to choose the difficult path to engage with youngsters most in need, they are the mentors with the most potential to change lives if they understand the struggle to escape disadvantages which rob young people not only of dignity, hope and the means to improve their lives but also of role models who stick around for long enough to keep supporting them.

In communities where poverty is deeply entrenched, the cycle of disadvantage is difficult to break. It takes commitment to engage with those determined to make better lives for themselves and to get to know the many ways in which poverty tends to perpetuate itself through generations unless there is substantial support as well as role models for behaviours which can help break the cycle. How many of us are willing to share the privilege we have earned or were born into with those who need a higher level of support, patience and altruism when trying to beat the odds?