Laamiga is a London-based, 18+ women’s mentoring programme for women from Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and Refugee (BAMER) backgrounds. The mentoring programme helps women develop confidence, find employment, improve their wellbeing, and reach their potential. It supports around 20–30 mentor–mentee pairs each year.
The charity is seeking student volunteers to support a small research project exploring the impact of its mentoring programme. This is an opportunity to gain experience in qualitative research with real-world application in community-based work and make a contribution to the charity’s impact.
Researchers will interview existing mentors who are starting with new mentees (life coach/career/holistic) and new mentees who are starting up, as well as established pairs of mentors and mentees.
The goal is to produce a report and case studies which will both assist with the charity understanding how mentors and mentees benefit from their work, and provide information for the charity website. Interviews will be performed via WhatsApp, individually with the mentors and mentees of ~6 pairs. The research should aim to capture the start and end of mentoring journeys, so a mixture of new and established pairs will be recruited.
Recruitment for mentors occurs every term once a term. The charity has contact with current and previous pairs and so will be able to support researchers by supplying them with candidates.
- Scoping review of existing research on the effects of mentoring on BAMER populations and women
- Compile questions informed by the review to assess, in mentors, how they felt regarding the training and support they were given, and how they felt about their relationship with their mentees; and in mentees how they feel the mentoring has affected their trajectory, and how their lives have changed as a result, as well as their relationship with the mentor.
- Include some simple and accessible “scale” questions for the mentees, such as “how confident did you feel before and after mentoring?” – and use the responses as prompts for further discussion. Other questions could explore the level and type of support and responsiveness of the mentor, Liaise with the Coordinator (Emua Ali) to check the questions are effective for the research goals and the audience and to agree the report format and style.
- Allocate one hour per interview, with estimated interview lengths between 30-60 minutes
- Final output – analyse and write up the findings in a short report including anonymised individual case studies
Time commitment
Flexible hours – some interviews will need to be in school hours (10am -3pm) whilst others could be evenings, weekends or lunch times to accommodate interviewees work.