TAKE any day of the week and you’ll be sure to find a mentor spending time with a child somewhere in Bermuda.In an effort to thank them for their “gift of time”, YouthNet and Big Brothers & Big Sisters of Bermuda (BBBS) are joining forces to throw a mammoth party next week.

Some 500 mentors of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities are expected to attend the fourth annual “Thank You Mentor Day” party next Thursday at Par-La-Ville Park.

Executive directors of the two mentoring programmes, Clare Mello of YouthNet and Esme Williams of BBBS, met this week to talk about the impact their mentors have on the lives of the island’s youth.

As a community-based programme, BBBS mentors spend as much social time as they can with their “littles”, while YouthNet is school-based and mentors spend an hour a week with their mentees at their respective schools.

YouthNet’s programme — PeerNet — allows senior school students to mentor pupils from primary and middle schools across the island and was so successful when launched, that there are now close to 100 students involved in the programme.

Meanwhile both organisations are launching additional programmes this year, including BBBS’s family mentoring, which allows husbands and wives to jointly offer their time as “bigs”.

A new programme in partnership with the Bermuda Sloop Foundation for the development of teenagers is also planned.

Ms Williams said several “littles” have participated so far in a trial and have spent up to a week on the Spirit of Bermuda sailing around the island.

Within the next few months YouthNet will be launching two new programmes — E-mentoring, in partnership with the Ministry of Telecommunications and E-Commerce and the Bermuda College, and Inter-generational mentoring which will match seniors to youngsters from various schools.

Mentoring groups team up for party