December 15, 2025
Pleasure of Mentoring, Mentoring Tales
Try the first-ever characteristic in MENTOR’s new Pleasure of Mentoring collection, which elevates the tales of younger folks and mentors throughout the nation who assist be certain that human relationships stay our grounding power. We’re proud to focus on these wonderful people and applications which might be fostering belonging and partnering with MENTOR to construct extra linked communities the place younger folks can thrive.
Kubura Issah: Rising Chief Cohort Participant
Kubura Issah is a Junior at Howard College, majoring in Worldwide Enterprise with a minor in Political Science. She is a journey fanatic excited about style, modeling, and content material creation as each inventive retailers and avenues to attach with youthful women round confidence and self-expression. She is trying ahead to launching her profession when she graduates by becoming a member of McKinsey & Firm as a Enterprise Analyst. Exterior of sophistication, Kubura is closely concerned in scholar management and mentoring on campus. She serves in roles that allow her to plan applications, work with directors, and create areas for younger folks to really feel seen, heard, and protected. Long run, she plans to work in enterprise capital, serving to construct and scale companies that serve communities in Ghana and throughout Africa.
We had been fortunate to have her take part in MENTOR’s inaugural Rising Leaders Cohort on the 2025 Nationwide Mentoring Summit. The Cohort is an opportunity for younger folks (ages 18-24) within the mentoring discipline to expertise a Summit particularly tailor-made to them, attending specialised workshops and connecting with friends and different leaders to sharpen their expertise, broaden their views, and construct important relationships.
Kubura shared that by means of the Rising Leaders Cohort
“She discovered sensible instruments for how one can lead once you’re younger, how one can advocate for your self, and how one can construct relationships with mentors and sponsors, all whereas having the chance to attach with different younger leaders within the discipline.”
She is a shining instance of the depth of ardour, data, and vitality that aspiring leaders within the mentoring motion are bringing to strengthen the sector. She believes
“Mentorship is important particularly for first-generation and Black college students who are sometimes navigating areas with no built-in roadmap. mentor isn’t simply somebody who offers recommendation, they increase what you consider is feasible, problem you, and generally open doorways you didn’t even know existed. Personally, a superb mentor modified the entire trajectory of life. Serving to me to grasp that I had company over my very own life and had the ability to get again on monitor.”
Kubura’s story and the mentors in her life showcase the natural and generally sudden ways in which mentors come into an adolescent’s life and depart a long-lasting influence. She shares that
“I’ve been blessed to have mentors who met me the place I used to be however didn’t let me keep there. {Our relationships} normally began in very unusual methods by means of a campus program, or an internship and deepened as a result of they constantly checked in, gave sincere suggestions, and trusted me with actual accountability. Their influence reveals up within the alternatives I pursue, the arrogance I’ve strolling into rooms, and the best way I now attempt to present up for the girls and boys I mentor. Mentorship has made my journey really feel much less lonely and extra intentional.”
As an Rising Leaders Cohort participant, Kubura gained as a lot as she delivered to others on the Summit, sharing her lived expertise as a mentor, mentee and chief who’s deliberately creating areas for different younger folks to really feel seen and heard. These areas and the sense of neighborhood and belonging they supply are highly effective. As Kubura shared
“My favourite half [of the Summit] was after we met with all of the individuals in a extra informal setting and simply talked. There have been no mics or slides, simply actual dialog about what it feels prefer to be younger proper now, the place we’re in life, and what we’re attempting to determine. With the ability to chuckle, be sincere about our fears and desires, and listen to that different younger individuals are coping with the identical issues was highly effective. It felt like neighborhood. Total, the expertise gave me extra confidence that my voice issues, my story has worth, and that I’ve a accountability to show the mentorship I’ve obtained into influence for others.”
MENTOR is happy to proceed increasing the alternatives constructed by means of the Rising Leaders Cohort on the 2026 Nationwide Mentoring Summit as a result of as Kubura highlights
“The Summit jogged my memory that mentoring is just not a ‘good to have,’ it’s a necessary. When younger folks have mentors, they make fewer blind selections, they bounce again sooner from setbacks, and so they’re extra more likely to think about themselves in areas the place they’ve by no means seen somebody like them earlier than. The Summit pushed me to be extra intentional about either side of that relationship: persevering with to hunt out mentors who problem and assist me and likewise displaying up as that particular person for the scholars coming behind me.”
The Nationwide Mentoring Summit, and the hope and vitality of the hundreds of practitioners and younger individuals who attend, are an important a part of the mentoring motion; a motion that builds neighborhood and belonging, will increase the adoption of confirmed, high-quality mentoring practices, and expands entry to high quality mentoring relationships for younger folks.