H&M partnered with Stemettes in 2022 to offer mentorship to young women and non-binary people through the Student to Stemette (STS) programme. Mentoring aims to increase their confidence and employability skills in STEM fields.
Two months into mentoring, 20 pairs of mentors and mentees have met fortnightly for one-to-one sessions and provided feedback on their experience so far.
What do mentees think?
Mentees rated their experience 9.1 out of 10 and their mentorship pairing 9.4 out of 10.
At the start of the programme, mentees work with their mentors to set personal goals to work on. Over the first two months of the programme, they have already achieved 50% of their goals.
Goals included decision-making towards the future, awareness of opportunities, and building confidence. Mentees are also supported in creating their CVs and Personal Statements.
They reported increasing their self-confidence and gaining insight into future career options as unexpected benefits of mentoring.
What do mentors think?
Mentors have rated their experience so far 8.4 out of 10. They have spent an average of 4.5 hours working with their mentee over the past two months.
“The opportunity to support a young girl unsure of what career path she wants and being able to help by breaking this down into small goals. This has challenged me to understand how different the world is now compared to when I was of the same age and look into different avenues of what can be explored.” – STS Mentor
Thank you to H&M for partnering on this programme and all the volunteers who have taken part.
