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Hello Advisor Team

This is Haile from Ethiopia. first of all i would like to say thank you for all your support and you endeavors to support different community living in crisis in the world . i have benefited many for this page and i have referred many issues while i face challenges in my work time.
currently i am working with INGO serving for African refugees in Ethiopia as protection team leader for mentorship programme. the programme is a refugee lead programme( one refugee mentor for refugee mentee) aiming to contribute for resilience of refugee in time of unsafe and irregular migration. the mentoring course implementing via phone (because of covid19) is highly focused on four area including planning skill, education study skill, protection risks and options and stress management.

Saying this, since the programme is phone based, now we are facing changes on the E-mentoring sessions. One thing we are not able to include for deaf persons in the sessions. and secondly we have doubts on quality of the programme (because we are remotely managing the program). what advice do you have to solve this challenge.? and either any possibility to assign a mentor for me so that i will be able to train strong mentor team in refugee setup.

thank you for understanding my english.
stay safe

Haile
Answer:

Dear Haile,
Welcome back to the Community Tool Box! When reading your question, it appears you have two questions or challenges. 1) you are interested in how you can adapt your mentoring program for those who may be hearing impaired and 2) you have some doubts about the quality of the mentoring program. First, can you provide some insight into which remote platform you are using for E-mentoring? I know there are options in both Zoom and Google classroom for you to have close caption options (this helps those who are unable to hear). This may help those who are doing the mentoring. If the mentee has a hearing impairment, do they have access to any assistive aids or support on their end? Never want to answer a question with more questions, but I would need some more information to provide you with the best support. 
Second, you mentioned "we have doubts on quality of the programme." I wonder if you have been able to get any feedback from the mentee perspective? You can use one of your mentee sessions to ask them how are they feeling about the remote experience, what do they want to see more of and less of? We are all trying to manage this digital space and do our best in this environment. I do not want to be English-centered but here is a resource I found: https://www.mentoring.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/E-Mentoring-Supplem... and see this resource: https://www.mentoring.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Final_Elements_Publ...
I believe if you go several pages into the document, you will find some recommendations to consider and topics. In the checklist they offer items you should always consider in access and monitoring e-mentoring. 
Thank you
 

Question Date: Tue, 10/13/2020