We celebrated the end of our 8th cohort’s mentoring journeys at the end of August, bringing together mentors and mentees in person (and online, for those who couldn’t join us!) to reflect, share and celebrate their mentoring. Routes Mentoring Programme Manager, Wieke Vink, wrote and shared this poem for the cohort, to mark the end of their journeys…
Caring for a cohort
In this Anson room that speaks of old knowledge
With books holding stories of previous times
And rain finally - suddenly dropping on the roof
We gather here today to celebrate
The new steps that you took together
The stories that you told each other
The moments that you shared
As you have been collecting and compiling your knowledge
From across your fields of expertise
And all your experiences
As women, as leaders, as learners
As mentors and mentees
Sharing it in blogs and workshops and your CVs
Some of you have been drawing
All of you have been exploring
Stepping into the new
Working on learning that might be relevant to you
You’ve been building on -
The power of conversation
The power of listening
The power of clarity and repeated attention
That what is needed to make something grow
Like a plant climbing up the window sill
Finding its way to the sky, and the sun
In a room coming out of a pandemic
We’ve seen you share and feed into blooming conversations
As we’ve been working as a team
To provide the right types of nourishment and support
And it hasn’t been an easy time
With headlines and heatwaves putting pressure
In a system that gets harsher and harsher
Where we try to keep up
Try to keep our heads up
Keep lifting each other up
And are committed to staying connected
For we know
From those connections flow
The strengths of a cohort
The joys and the successes
There are now new courses on the horizon
New connections across your networks
New reflections on taking it forwards
And yet the biggest achievement of all is care
Care is not a soft skill
It is the hardwire of our societies
It is what holds us together
It is what builds bridges
What brings new policies, new possibilities into this world
So when we look back -
As we’ve been caring for this cohort
And seen all the care that you shared
We can feel nothing but proud
As we have seen you struggle and doubt
Learn and reflect
Connect
Thinking about
What you can do
What she can do
What we can do together
And as we leave tonight from this place
Where we’ve met new and familiar faces
Let’s take this into other spaces
This care and shared knowledge
From this group of women
From across London
From across the UK
Who want you to succeed
In your dreams and your daily lives
In your teams and your communities
In your aspirations and scholarship applications
In your strengths and public speaking
As we are speaking to you all today
Please join me in saying a big ‘HOORAY’
For the impact that you made, is here to stay
And to continue, and to be built on
by Wieke Vink, Mentoring Programme Manager
