Since September 2020, Femme Palette has been a proud partner of Czech non-profit organization Nadání a dovednosti. For nine years already, the platform has been helping students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds to make sure their first career steps are heading in the right direction.
As our give back initiative, we have been offering a couple free seats for Nadani a Dovednosti twice in a year. For each cohort, three young adults from Nadání a dovednosti’s project Rozhled were chosen to receive 6 months of mentoring from our global mentor community of experts. This year, we’re taking our partnership further and committed to help 50 young adults from the project Rozhled over the next 2 years. Keep on reading to learn more about what three of the selected mentees have achieved and why they appreciate being part of the program!
Katka: Preparing for life abroad
Katka has been one of the most recent mentees to have been selected for mentoring. Her mentor Hana Holejsovska (IT Consultant at CoreChange AB) was helping her prepare to start a career and life abroad, which also involves working on the language skills Katka will need to establish herself.
“Hana and I have moved on to another part of our plan. Together we’re discovering and discussing work opportunities in Norway and all that’s connected to that. We’re still trying to work on my English language skills. Hana even arranged for me to have conversations with a native speaker,” Katka says.
Anezka: Defying self-doubt
When Anezka was selected, her mind was at first filled with all kinds of doubts about herself and her ambitions. However, mentoring has turned out to be a highly rewarding experience, and she’s particularly happy about the match with her mentor.
“I’ve only had two sessions with my mentor so far, but I can already see that Femme Palette is not only broadening my horizons in the industry I aim to work in, but I’m also establishing many valuable contacts. I was a bit scared and unsure in the beginning that I’d perhaps overestimated myself in my SMART goals and if I’d make a competent mentee for my experienced mentor. But during our first meeting, all the nerves and worries disappeared. My mentor Vladimir Stastny (Managing Partner at KOOPEO Ventures) and I have connected on a human level. I’m really happy and I believe that after having set my goals, mentoring will move me forward in my career by a great amount!”
"I’ve only had two sessions with my mentor so far, but I can already see that Femme Palette is not only broadening my horizons in the industry I aim to work in, but I’m also establishing many valuable contacts."
Katrin: Figuring out a dream career
Katrin entered the program with the vision of finding out more about the HR field and if she was a good fit for it. Mentoring was giving her a ton of insights and useful information needed to make her dream career more tangible.
“Overall, mentoring is amazing. My mentor Petra Vilimkova (People Manager at IBM, CIC Brno) and I have met 3 times so far. The first session was about getting to know each other and we established a fortnightly schedule for our sessions. After that, I set myself the goal of finding out through mentoring what working in HR is like, so that I could answer the question of if I want to work in this field and how much I want to work with people. Even outside of our sessions, Petra recommends various links and interesting information to me. I think that mentoring will definitely help me figure out my ideal career for the future,” Katrin believes.
"Even outside of our sessions, Petra recommends various links and interesting information to me. I think that mentoring will definitely help me figure out my ideal career for the future."
To conclude, mentoring can help not only people with established careers, but also those who are still figuring things out and are yet to embark on their career journey. And it’s even more important to help those who haven’t been blessed with as many privileges and opportunities in life to set out on the right path. We hope to see our mentees from Nadání a dovednosti become successful in the goals they set out to achieve, and much more!
