Why use this?
The aim of this method is to let you travel with your mentee throughout his/ her volunteering experience and also help him/her to fill out the youthpass at the end of the program. It is actually a tool than can be used in many different ways. The general idea is that the volunteer has to draw a river, the river of knowledge.
Method
This is not a single day’s task but a whole process. This means that the volunteer will keep drawing little by little the same river each week or each 2-3 days or even each month. The river starts from the springs in the mountains (which symbolises the arrival) until the connection with the sea (which symbolises the departure of the volunteer). A good way to draw it is by the end of each week, during the weekend. The volunteer can bring into his/her mind the whole week, day by day, what did he/she did (activities, meetings), what went wrong or a happy/joyful moment he/she had. In addition, what he/she learned (new things/techniques) or maybe new people that he/she met. These things should be the most important moments, a sort of highlights. After that, he/she has to put all those highlights on paper, in the river. The way to draw the river, is completely up to him/her and his/her own perspective.
Then, in order to be able to remember the moments, he/she can also draw an arrow and describe it by using a small text or some key words.
It is advisable each week be separated from the next with a line, so in the end of the whole process the volunteer can look at the river and bring to his/her mind all the journeys he/she had been on from the beginning.
This method can also help when filling out the youthpass, as it can bring to the table issues that mentor and mentee have to solve or discuss in their meetings and it also may help in the volunteers’ daily or weekly reflection.
Tip from a Mentor
Instead of using pen and paper, you can alternatively create with your mentee an online document or a shared file where everything can be uploaded and will be accessible to both.