Mentoring experience worldwide shows that
mentoring programs have great impact on empowering young scientists especially
women in their career development and particularly for retaining them in
agricultural related sciences and research. Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA)
is working to ensure the future of current academic staff through a new formal
mentoring program, supported by iAGRI. SUA’s interest in mentoring is motivated
by numerous young professional staff members who need support in their professional
growth as individuals in the early stage of their career development. SUA sees
mentoring as allowing senior professionals to share their experience,
knowledge, and networks with young scientists.
Focused on young academic staff who have been
at SUA for six years or less, the mentoring program launched in September 2013
with 23 mentor-mentee pairs. The goal of the program is to support the career
development of young SUA staff in the areas of teaching, research and
leadership. Both mentors and mentees are
enthusiastic and excited about their involvement in the mentoring program.
