2022 Volunteer Mentor: Ongoing Youth Mentorship

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Please support the next generation of technology innovators by signing up as a volunteer mentor, and we will follow up with more information for volunteer intake and onboarding.

Focus Area: STEM
Participant (min-max): About 2-5 hours per month
Nonprofit Location: Puget Sound
Project Type: Virtual, with the option of occasional in-person events
Area of Impact: Puget Sound
Duration: March 2022 -December 2022


1:1 Mentorship (Virtual)

Areas of Mentorship Support

• General Mock Interview
• Developer, Project Management, or Design Mock Interviews
• PM Mock Interviews
• Resume Building
• Group Workshops (Facilitation and Lesson Planning in professional development such as resume building and interview prep, etc.)
• Open to suggestions


Mentor Availability Example

• Mentor A is available Tuesday and Thursday Evenings from 4pm-6pm and meets with a student on average 2 hours per month.
• Mentor B is available Monday through Friday from 4pm-8pm and meets with 2 students on average 4 hours per month.


Volunteer Responsibilities

• Remotely available between March 2022 -December 2022
• Estimated commitment is at least 2 hours per month per student
• Mentors can choose to be paired with 1-4 students.
• Complete a 5-10 hour volunteer onboarding within your first month (Background Check, GOKiC’s Mentorship Program Overview, etc.)
• Provide the Program Coordinator your 1:1 mentoring availability
• Mentor students around general advice, goal-setting, academic progress, mock interviews, resume building, and other career preparation activities
• Meet with students through video conference 1:1 on at least a quarterly basis and update progress on the Mentorship Tracking log.
• Attend All-mentor meetings with GOKiC Staff (held on Zoom on a monthly basis)


Additional ways to support (optional)

• Estimate 2-10 hours per event. Engage with our missions further by supporting group events (mainly virtual and planned in collaboration with the program coordinator.)
      • Plan and facilitate a workshop topic
      • Participate as a Guest speaker, such as a career panelist,
      • Participate as a Keynote speaker such as motivational speakers or facilitating discussions in identified needs such as AI Racism, Deep Learning, and the effects on BIPOC, for example.
• Estimate 2-4 hours per event. If located near the Seattle area, there may be opportunities to attend in-person GOKiC group events with students planned in collaboration with the program coordinator, such as in-person mock interviewing or on-campus visits.
• Estimate 4-16 hours per event. Sign up as a coach for Youth Hackathons held by GOKiC twice a year
• GOKiC will organize hackathons - a 24- hour design sprint to come together as a community to create new tech where mentors can sign up to coach students during this event.


Students are participating in a GOKiC program offering the following core areas:

• Project-based skill-building through a curriculum centered around competitive programming and social justice.
• Collective application to internships
Technical mentorship:
• Interpersonal professional skill development:
• Application of social justice theory:
• Conferences and Workshops:
• Hackathons


ABOUT GEEKING OUT KIDS OF COLOR (GOKiC)

The mission of Geeking Out Kids of Color (GOKiC) is the liberation of youth of color by creating decolonized tech education and providing mentorship to nurture leaders of change. Across all the programs, GOKiC engages BIPOC youth with the goal of creating actual career and life choices for them based on their passion, interests, and direction they choose to pursue. GOKiC teaches technology education through a critical race and gender theory framework as a way for BIPOC youth to build new technology pathways to empower their community, dismantle oppressive systems that create barriers, and promote allyship to empower youth from marginalized groups to pursue life choices. GOKiC builds and sustains youth programs that are rooted in community, computer science, and consciousness.


THE COLLECTIVE YOUTH PROGRAM AT GOKIC (Mentorship cohort)

The program fosters community, creates a sense of belonging, and offers professional networking while strengthening young people’s competency and foundation in technology and building transferable skills to prepare for post-secondary education and career opportunities — all within the context of challenging inequitable and oppressive systems.