Post created by NPC Mentors Ozma Malibu and Mimi Muircastle.
The NPC mentors are a group dedicated to making life (both RL and SL) a little easier for new residents by assisting them to become members of the NPC community.
NonProfit representatives and mentors are passionate and altruistic; when focused, this powerful energy can move mountains – certainly SL mountains at least. When used as the basis of collaboration, the energy is even more powerful, and SL begins to have an effect in RL. The mentors therefore also work together to increase engagement of NPC residents with the community, and to network with other virtual worlds groups.
Every Friday, after the NPC community meeting, the NPC mentors gather in the Amphitheatre. Mentor meetings are open: anyone who is a mentor, needs a mentor, wants a mentor, or wants to be a mentor is invited. Or you can just come out of general interest, no strings attached, to find out what we are doing.
And what do mentors do, exactly, to assist new residents and increase engagement? There are as many answers to that question as there are mentors. Each mentor has different skills, but all excel in the basics, which are: being a good friend – and being able to find solutions.
If you want to be a mentor, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know everything about building, for example. You will learn on the job. And that’s another reason to become a mentor. It’s a good chance for you to learn.
As new residents or mentees become more expert, they too can become mentors – and mentors can always ask their own mentors for help. Yes, mentors have their own mentors.
Some requests from mentees have to do with NPC policies and traditions, or with resident responsibilities. Others have to do with learning to build the basic elements of an office.
Most recently, the NPC mentors have been thinking about the best ways to welcome TeenGrid residents to the Main Grid. The members of NPC represent an extremely valuable resource that has the potential to allow teens to create similar nonprofits of their own if we share our experience, knowledge and nonprofit-building skills with interested teens. We hope Teen Commons will provide that opportunity.
The teens that many of the mentors know and work with want to be involved in meaningful, helpful, important projects in which they have the opportunity to contribute on a level equal to that of the adults in a group. What a perfect match Teen Commons could become between the tenants of NPC and the teens who are interested in learning from them.
The young entrepreneurs who got their start on the Teen Grid, and have now created the businesses on Eros demonstrate the exceptional skills former Teen Grid residents have developed both in building and content creation. The management of their island and support of one another is heartening to observe. As mentors we can only imagine the good those same young entrepreneurs could do if they focused their energy and creativity on the building of nonprofits to support causes that are important to them.
Written by: ozma