Homer: Mentoring the Next Generation of Youth Innovators and Leaders
Everyone is throwing around the word youth this, youth that, how it is tough getting through to millennials and generation X & Y; but what do the youth have to say?
Growing up, finishing school was a rite of passage. It was part of you like breathing to stay alive. If you didn’t finish high school, go to university and get a degree, you were a disappointment and would most likely never get a job.
What was it like going through senior high school?
Senior high school in Uganda is the crossroad that determines your career, the subject combinations you choose determine which course you will take at university which in turn determines which profession you will take in your career.
It was not uncommon to have students who wanted to be doctors and offered combinations of Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Math only a week later to realise Chemistry wasn’t a walk in the park and they shifted to Physics, Economics, Math and maybe Entrepreneurship. In a week they have moved from the medical path to maybe engineering.
We asked ourselves, but what if we had guidance from someone in the field we wished to join? Would things have been different?
Maybe. If a doctor was there to have a talk with you and you even got some time to shadow them at work, see how they save lives and make people happy; that could make a big difference.
This would fire up your passion, your love for the profession or to become who you want to be not just because it’s a job, not because of a good pay or because your parents and family determined it so.
You would perform without hindrance and excel beyond expectations. Not only in professional careers but the entrepreneurship scene too!
That is how Homer was born.
Homer is a Genopen mentorship project that improves the motivation, focus and alignment of students with their careers and goals. It is a foundation that will enrich with the core knowledge and understanding of their career path, setting goals and how to achieve them.
The students will come out confident, more skilled, determined and with a rich deeper professional network which they develop through job shadows giving them a place to start.
We hope to tap into their creative thinking and prepare them for the world after school and university.
We sincerely believe Homer is the missing key to guiding the youth in a world so crowded with digital information and media, how well it will perform is yet to be determined at the end of our pilot in five high schools in Uganda.