The World Federation of KSIMC

Boys Blog: 

Day Two of the Mentor Training Programme commenced at 8.30 am with breakfast, and most importantly, a delicious Khoja style tea made by Syed Mohamed. The first session was a reflection session led by Brother Qasim. This session focused on reflecting on the previous day and required us to share one new insight that we had learnt about ourselves and how this will affect our role as a mentor.

This was followed by the next session which was about Adult Learning. In this session we learnt about Pedagogy and Andragogy. I learnt that Pedagogy is a questioning technique in which there is a teacher and a pupil and it is very direct where the teacher is leading the pupil to an answer. However, Andragogy is a form of open questioning where both people are learners and so this method gives the opportunity to find out about the person’s true feelings and inner thoughts.

The afternoon’s programme focused on developing different type of skills that we require as mentors when talking to our mentees. The first was active listening followed by empathy, questioning and lastly feedback. These were taught in the form of different role-plays where mentors and the facilitator took turns to be in a role play where one was a mentor and the other was a mentee. We were given lots of different scenarios, some very tough, all that were similar to something that had come up in previous years in the course and we were asked to role play these scenarios with each other. I thought that this was a brilliant way to develop these skills as we could all help each other in coming up with the best way to deal with certain situations. At 8.30pm, we stopped for Maghribain Salaat and dinner and now we wait in anticipation for the next day insha'Allah!

Written by: Shabbarali Khimji from Nairobi, Kenya

Girls Blog:

Day Two of the Mentor Development Programme began with a reflection circle in which the mentors shared personal insights that they had learned about themselves the day before. This was a refreshing way to begin the second day of training as it created an environment of trust amongst the mentors. The coordinator, Br. Qasim, then delved into the concept of Adult Learning in which he explained to the mentors the difference between pedagogy and andragogy and the fundamental role of both approaches throughout the course. As the day progressed the mentors engaged in feedback sessions and their vitality in encouraging openness. 

Overall the day was very productive, and we as mentors feel confident with what is to come head. The most beneficial activity today was role-playing different situations that may arise with the participants, this gave us a chance to discuss a myriad of issues and how to appropriately tackle them. Alhamdulillah the day was very successful, and we would like to thank Br. Qasim for equipping us with skillsets that will be especially useful for the duration of the camp. We look forward to the arrival of the participants and an exciting journey ahead! 

Written by: Zahra Dhanji from Florida and Masuma Fazel from Birmingham