Chandara mentoring program, a beneficial experience for all

Mentor Tuy Chhairaing and his mentee, Varn Narin

The third session of the Chandara mentoring program is about to start! Current mentors and mentees have shared with us the feelings and benefits they are experiencing.

To build a new relationship with en expert who will guide you, to have answers to your questions in order to see your professional future more clearly, to have someone who helps you to reach your goals... This is the objective of the Chandara mentoring program offered to CSH students.

For nine months, students who join it are in contact with a mentor, a professional in the targeted field, who takes the time to share his or her experience and guides the mentee. "I wasn't sure if I wanted to be a surgeon or a pediatrician", confides Leng Sokuntheary, third-year student in medecine at the University of Health Science. "Thanks to my mentor Dr. Hout Sorm, general doctor, I have a better understanding of myself, my skills, and the specialists that hospitals would need in the future. Now, I am strongly sure that I want to be a pediatrician". And profesionnal orientation is not the only thing this programme brings to our aspiring doctor: "When I don’t understand my lessons, I ask him. He kindly explains me the concepts and the main points to understand the whole lesson."

For other students, what started as a mentor-mentee relationship has become much stronger: "We have a good relationship, we feel like we are a family. I keep in touch with him everyday on Facebook or Telegram", explains Varn Narin, fourth-year student in tourism and hospitality at the National University of Management. Her mentor is Tuy Chhairaing, who works as an HR assistant director at the Rosewood hotel in Phnom Penh. "My dream job is to be a flight attendant. Thanks to him, I improved my hospitality skills in tourism, he helps me a lot."

But the mentoring program does not only benefit our students, the mentors do too. "I gained more practical experience for my current work and used it as a chance to develop a toolkit to support young people better", shares Nuon Monika, co-founder of Green Lady Cambodia. "Being creative, conducting diverse sessions and learning about the outcomes with my mentee helped me to develop my skills as well."

Either as a mentor or as a mentee, Sokuntheary, Narin and Monika all agree on one thing: they strongly recommend joining the mentoring program. If for Sokuntheary, her mentor is a big help to build a career plan and reach her goals, for Narin, it's an opportunity to extend her network, when for Monika, helping a student led her "to develop creativity and go beyond the stories that already existed." And you, will you be the next to benefit from CSH's mentoring program by joining it?