I am a product of mentorship.
I say that plainly because it is true, and because I think we don’t say it often enough. So many people and opportunities, some formal and some completely informal, have poured into me and carried me to where I am today. When I sat down to list them, the list kept growing. I’m almost certain I’m still missing a few.
There’s the resourceful Ally Crockford, and the formidable Asha Jama, who is more of a peer mentor to me and proof that mentorship doesn’t always flow from older to younger. There’s also the ELITE Program for Black Youth, which got me my very first internship in this country and, more importantly, gave me the confidence to believe I had skills and experiences worth hiring.
Then came a series of programs that each shaped a different part of me:
ACGC’s Global Connect program, where I engaged directly with activists, policymakers and culture-bearers on issues from FGM and human trafficking to survivor-centred advocacy, the SDGs, and the importance of honouring Indigenous knowledge rather than overriding it. It taught me that real equality asks those in power to challenge their own privilege.
Apathy is Boring’s RISE program, an initiative under Canada Service Corps that helps young people co-create community projects. Through RISE, I co-founded Dear Future YEG and saw firsthand what becomes possible when young people are trusted to lead.
The Academy for Sustainable Innovation’s Youth Environmental Leaders Learning Lab, in partnership with The Starfish Canada, which connected me with young environmental leaders across the country.
The Africa Centre’s Ujima Fellowship, which connected me to Canada Confesses Advocacy Institute, where I now serve as Events Lead and a member of the Board of Directors. I will be forever grateful for that connection.
Onyx Initiative and ICON Talent Partners, which opened doors and conversations I didn’t know I could walk into.
Propel Impact’s Consulting Fellowship, where I led financial modelling and pricing work for CityHive Vancouver and a market analysis and marketing toolkit for Human Nature Projects Canada, all with expert mentors and a generous peer network behind me.
The United Nations Association in Canada’s SDG 5 Gender Equality Fellowship, where I trained in global governance, feminist foreign policy and gender-responsive policymaking alongside youth leaders from across the country, under the leadership of the inspiring Mariam Karmazanashvili.
Black Donors Save Lives’ Youth Health Champions program, where I researched technology-facilitated gender-based violence affecting Black women and women-identifying youth aged 15 to 24, exploring how digital harm, misogynoir and institutional distrust shape health engagement. Alongside my fellow champions, I helped build a project website, TikTok educational content, a youth safety toolkit, a policy brief and the Community Accountability, Response and Empowerment (C.A.R.E ) of Black Girls and Women Safe Buddy Model, all aimed at strengthening trust and participation in health and donation systems within Black communities.
Every one of these was a mentor in its own way. Every one of them made the next step feel possible.
So when I was selected as one of 24 young leaders from across Canada to take part in Mentor Canada’s 2026 Young Leaders Forum in Ottawa, ahead of the Canadian Mentoring Summit, it felt like coming full circle. It was an honour, to say the least, to be in a room with so many young changemakers who care about the future of mentoring in this country.
Day One: The Young Leaders Forum
Despite Air Canada’s best efforts with delays, I made it to Ottawa on time on Sunday and immediately connected with two other youth from the program. Bright and early the next morning, the forum began.
I don’t think I can fully put into words how incredible a facilitator Daniel G. Horgan is. As a facilitator myself, I know how hard it is to hold a large group and keep it engaging. Daniel has a rare gift: you could say something in the morning, and hours later, while leading a completely different discussion, he would remember both what you said and that you were the one who said it. It made everyone feel listened to and heard, and it made it impossible not to be fully present.
We started with community building and speed introductions. In the final round, Daniel introduced something called a “tiny teach,” a way to both learn and teach something about ourselves to someone else. During the group shareback, people had taught each other words in their languages, a dance move, and even how to mime. You know that awkwardness at the start of meeting new people? This was the moment the ice really started to melt. We were slowly becoming one group instead of 24 strangers.
Permission to Speak in Draft
Next, we built our shared community agreement, a practice I first learned through the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights and one I brought into the start of every ECHOFORM program this summer.
One agreement empowered me more than any other: permission to speak in draft.
As a neurodivergent person, my brain often struggles to balance perfectionism with not knowing where to start. I can have a million thoughts running at once and still feel shame about saying any of them out loud, for fear of sounding disorganized or unintelligent. That single line gave me room to breathe. It’s one I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
We are often our own harshest critics, and the world can already be an unkind place. I think we owe ourselves at least this one kindness: to let our ideas arrive unfinished.
Leading Self, Leading Others, Leading Change
The rest of the day moved through sessions on leading oneself, leading others and leading change. We practised climbing the question ladder, moving from transactional conversations to relationship-building ones. We talked about personal branding and how to stand out not only by saying who we are, but by offering proof and opening the door to further conversation, using the 3Ps: prompt (the why), personal (what you loved) and purposeful (the reason to connect).
We also reflected on our own peaks and dips, the qualities of people who make every room better, and how those qualities compare to what others have said about us. That last exercise was quietly moving.
The Puzzle Game
If I had to pick one favourite moment, it would hands down be the puzzle game.
Picture six tables. Each table chose a leader to go to the front and grab a bag of puzzle pieces. At my table, the selection process was simple: the moment Daniel explained the next step, I felt two pairs of eyes turn to me from either side.
I came back with the pieces and the board, feeling the pressure to lead my team to victory with just five minutes on the clock. For context, I am competitive and I love games. Nothing could have prepared me for what came next.
I started with the corner pieces, and very quickly our table realized nothing was matching. Around the room, other groups were realizing the same thing, and chaos followed. People began moving from table to table, collecting pieces for the puzzle they had chosen. In that moment, I decided my role was to protect my team’s rapidly shrinking pile.
Once the storm settled, we worked with what we had left and went searching for the pieces our board needed, watching the clock the whole time. Then came the twist: another table seemed to be building the exact same puzzle as us. The comforting part was that as groups finished, they came over to help the tables that hadn’t finished yet.
It was just a game, but it held so many lessons. When we’re struggling ourselves, it can feel impossible to help anyone else. But the small acts of help we offer when we can are often what bring others back to us when we’re the ones who need pulling up. Mentorship works the same way.
Then, during the debrief, Daniel asked how each group had decided which puzzle to build. In a stunning turn of events, not one of us had thought to flip the board over and look at the picture on the back.
I’m still laughing about that, and still thinking about what it means to rush into solving a problem without first looking at what we’re actually trying to build.
The Community Web
After a Q&A with the Mentor Canada team, we split into groups to pitch at a showcase for representatives from the Students Commission of Canada and Cisco. Each pitch was rooted in our values, our lived experiences and the gaps we hoped to address.
My group’s initiative was called The Community Web, with a spiderweb as our mascot. Our values around mentorship included openness, active listening, empathy, mentorship as a two-way street, willingness to learn, enthusiasm and community development. We imagined The Community Web as a resource connector, and the gap we wanted to address was the need for research into less traditional ways of evaluating mentorship, beyond the usual surveys.
The day closed with the Summit welcome dinner, a chance to meet some of the speakers, get to know each other in a more relaxed setting and, of course, eat. It was there that I met Catherine Légaré and Mathieu Hallé from Academos, a conversation that made their session later in the Summit even more meaningful.
Day Two: The Canadian Mentoring Summit Opens
The Summit opened with a powerful ceremony. An incredible group of drummers set the tone before the conversations began. Then Daniel had us on our feet, rotating around the room to meet new people, including a challenge to snap a selfie with someone we didn’t know and post it in the event app. It was a fun way to capture the day and push all of us outside our bubbles.
The opening plenary carried one thread through every story: someone once believed in each of these speakers, and now they spend their lives believing in others.
Adrian Leckie, M.Ed., shared his work overseeing Black Student Initiatives at the University of Toronto Scarborough, including the Imani Black Academic Mentorship Program, which connects Black youth with undergraduate mentors through culturally responsive, community-based learning.
Chadwin Bartley, a barber, entrepreneur, mentor and Ontario-certified teacher, reflected on his unconventional path. I related deeply when he talked about growing up with the expectation to become a doctor, lawyer or scientist. Choosing to become a barber was anything but conventional, and today, through the Bartley Skills Development Program and ChairLinks, he connects grooming with confidence, mentorship and career opportunities, and has trained more than 280 people.
Chris Atchison, President of the British Columbia Construction Association, spoke about industry-led programs like Building Builders and Builders Code.
Fiona Kirkpatrick Parsons and Ipellie Foo shared one of the most touching moments of the Summit: a mentorship story spanning more than six years. Hearing how far they’d come together made me reflect on my own journey, on everyone who has poured into me, and on everyone I now pour into.
Tavneet Kaur, Founder and Executive Director of X Helping Hands Association, shared how she started XHH as a project at St. Francis Xavier University shortly after arriving from India as an international student. Today it builds belonging for racialized and newcomer communities in rural Nova Scotia and has reached more than 6,200 people from over 26 cultures. As a newcomer myself, her commitment to filling community gaps stayed with me.
The ceremony closed with a fireside chat with Senator Paulette Senior, who reflected on her own ties to mentorship through a policy lens. She reminded us that advocacy is what gave Canada systems like public healthcare and the pension plan. Mentorship can change one life; advocacy can change the systems that shape many lives. That distinction has stayed with me.
Breakout Sessions
The Summit often ran several sessions at the same time. In my small attempt to absorb as much as possible, I tried to catch at least two sessions per time block.
Strengthening Mentoring Relationships for Growth with Chris Atchison, Hemanth Nunna and Joy Magnell explored mentoring in action through construction workforce programs like Building Builders and Integrating Newcomers, and how mentoring supports people entering, transitioning and growing within a career.
All Brains Welcome: Neurodiversity & Mentoring with Renee Angelo-Mauk was a no-brainer for me, given my personal connection. “Renee shared their own experience as a neurodivergent person and how it fuels their commitment to making sure no young person feels the way they once did.
Mentoring: A Catalyst for Youth Employment in Canada with Blanche Monabeka and Sydney Piggott from Mentor Canada and Katlin Power from the Students Commission of Canada introduced tools I’m excited to explore: the Valuegraphics dashboard for matching people by shared values, resources on cultural humility to help mentors work across backgrounds, and a social capital toolkit for embedding mentorship into workplaces.
How Academos Is Leveraging Technology to Fill the Mentoring Gap for Youth in Quebec with Catherine Légaré and Mathieu Hallé introduced me properly to Academos, a free virtual mentoring and career exploration platform for youth aged 14 to 30. What stood out was their vision of a young person who doesn’t yet know what career they want being able to simply list what they love, like soccer, theatre or sewing, and still be matched with a mentor. They spoke about how a single conversation with a mentor can leave young people feeling more reassured and less anxious about the gap between what they learn in school and what happens in the real world.
That evening’s networking social was a great chance to mingle informally. I had so much fun, with amazing conversations and even better food.
Day Three: The Final Day
I started the last morning by rotating through three sessions:
Learning Sideways: Mentorship & Skill Development with Ayomide Ojo and Chad Walcott drew on Circonflexe, the Provincial Employment Roundtable’s French-language mentorship program. I loved how it pairs language practice with cultural integration, helping mentees understand Quebec’s culture and quirks through the language itself, all without falling into a student-teacher dynamic.
From Survival to Thriving with Dr. Thanuja Thananayagam prompted reflection on workplace mentorship, sponsorship and the question of who is actually advocating for our advancement when we’re not in the room.
Leading the Future of Mentorship with Layla Harrison and Victoria Woodcock from ACCES Employment shared practical strategies for recruiting, engaging and retaining mentors, including a live demonstration of their Speed Mentoring® model.
In the next block, I joined THRIVE with Susan Ingram, on embedding mentoring within youth employment and social enterprise. My biggest takeaway: a strong placement needs both supervision, which covers what will happen, and mentoring, which covers what you are learning.
Lunch with David Allison
Before the closing plenary, the 24 of us came together one last time for a special lunch with keynote speaker David Allison of the Valuegraphics Project and the Cisco team. David shared his story with real vulnerability. He spoke about finding what you value most and living in line with it. He also said something close to this: life breaks every one of us, and it’s the scar tissue that makes us stronger.
That line landed for me. It made me think of my own journey with aerials, where strength is built through bruises, repetition and falling more times than you can count.
The Summit closed with heartfelt reflections from Ipellie Foo, Ross Anderson and Tracy Luca-Huger, Executive Director of Mentor Canada, who reminded us that mentoring is, at its core, about human connection, belonging and creating opportunities for others to thrive.
The People Between the Sessions
The side conversations mattered just as much as the programming.
I connected with folks from Girls E-Mentorship (GEM) about how they support young girls, and with MentorCity about their tools for sustaining mentoring relationships. It was a joy to see familiar faces: Dr. Golnaz Golnaraghi and Natasha Sidi from Accelerate Her Future (I was part of their cohort, and their Fellowship Circle work supporting racialized women gave me the lens of mentorship as a two-way street), and Sarah Chan with the Alberta Mentoring Partnership, who recently joined us at ECHOFORM’s Advice Constellation.
Hasmik Amaryan with the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society gave me a window into her work supporting newcomers through unfamiliar systems, and her reflection that gratitude for the opportunities we’ve received should become a responsibility to create them for others has stayed with me. Meeting people like West Estiverne and Mentor Canada’s board members left me encouraged by how many people are making time and space for emerging leaders. And a special shout out to Karl Lewis II with WoodGreen Community Services, and Khulan Zalaaul and Krys Munnings from VRAIE IDEA, for all the laughs.
To Daniel Horgan, Blanche Monabeka and the Mentor Canada team: thank you for making room for my story, and for believing it belonged in that room before I was sure it did. Sometimes mentorship looks like guidance. Sometimes it looks like someone holding the door open and trusting you to walk through.
And to my fellow Young Leaders: you made three days feel like a community. I’m bringing your ideas, your laughter and your courage back to Edmonton with me, and I can’t wait to see what each of you builds next.
Paying It Forward
Being poured into comes with a responsibility to pour back. Today, I mentor other young people in a few different ways:
As a Project Mentor with the Green Schools Across Canada (Eco Clubs) program.
As an alumni mentor for international and first-generation students through the University of Alberta’s ASSET (Alumni Student Support and Engagement Team).
Through the interVivos Mentorship Society, where I also serve on the board. Since 2006, interVivos has been matching emerging and established leaders across Edmonton, building relationships that help people grow their confidence, skills and networks. Whether you’re a young person looking for guidance or someone with experience to share, I can’t recommend getting involved enough.
Through ECHOFORM’s Advice Constellation, our mentorship circle built on the belief that mentorship flows both ways and wisdom moves in every direction. This summer, we closed our 2026 Artivism Cohort with an Advice Constellation evening at the Stanley A. Milner Library, bringing youth together with mentors and community leaders. Instead of a panel to sit through, it was an evening of honest conversation, mentor roundtables and shared reflection. If you’re a young person looking for guidance, or a community leader who’d like to join a future constellation as a mentor, we’d love to hear from you!
If any of these resources connect with your journey or your community, I hope you’ll explore them.
I left Ottawa with an even stronger conviction that behind every helping hand and every listening ear, there is a person whose life, talent and potential is being shaped, and that the person offering the support is transformed too.
Someone believed in me. Many someones did. The least I can do is keep believing in others.
Author: An̄urika (Rika) Onyenso, Founder & Program Director of ECHOFORM