Rarely does an individual care to give anything back to the community or society from where he has gained or learnt something. But the popular Small Firms Enterprise Development Initiative (SFEDI) is an exception. It does exactly that.
The people of North East will be greatly benefited in future by the skills and knowledge of all those being trained as Volunteer Business Mentors.
Northumberland Business Service Ltd (NBSL) has been conducting the free ‘Introduction to Enterprise Mentoring’ training programme at Hexham Business Advice Centre from the beginning of the New Year. Victoria Moodie of ‘CDC Enterprise Agency’ in County Durham is in charge of the sessions, which covers information about mentoring, the importance and duties of the mentor, the various skills of the mentor, the areas to be covered etc.
The interactive sessions, in which the trainee mentors in small groups take up case studies of real life have proved to be extremely useful and productive, establishing the differences among mentoring, counselling, advising and coaching.
Trainee mentors are expected to complete a questionnaire at the end of the training period. Those who come out successful will be granted an online SFEDI Certificate of Recognition. They have to then join the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs (IOEE) and then have to undertake 24 hours of mentoring voluntarily during the two year period.
