Letter From The Editor – A Mentorship Experience

Mentorship is represented well in our community. We see it demonstrated by our educators in the school districts and through various sports and social profit programs in the region.

As a community, we know the importance of mentoring others because it provides our youth and residents with opportunities to support their success and independence.

Inside YMM Parent’s Issue 2, there are stories focused on mentorship; including a profile on local mentor Isy Castillo of Some Other Solutions and a feature on CAREERS – The Next Generation.

You will read about Tridon Communications and how its employees have learned skills as a result of mentorship.  Also, the Fort McMurray Airport Authority shares how their support in leadership with the YMM Northstar Fort McMurray Air Cadets provides opportunities to pursue careers in aviation.

To join the local mentorship initiatives, we launched a new program with the students of the Mayor Advisory Council on Youth’s (MACOY) General Assembly called Top 20 Under 20. The project stems from Your McMurray Magazine’s Top 50 Under 50.

With the set-up of the Top 50 program already well-established, I thought this project was going to be a breeze to put together. However, it turned out to be something considerably different than I had expected.

I learned that it was the mentorship/behind-the-scenes portion that equally mattered to highlighting the outstanding Top 20 youth in our community, as we created a unique experience for the MACOY students by showing them what it’s like in our professional roles as journalists in magazine publishing and videography.

The project allowed us to show and tell them what we do but also teach them what we do. My hopes from the beginning were that they would learn something valuable from us to take with them into the first years of their careers – whether it is in a field of communications, or not.

I do have to give a lot of credit to Matthew Lorenz of Shaw Spotlight because he knows how to educate his profession well. Though Shaw’s mandate is to promote and guide residents to create community programming, Matthew made the educational portion of the project fun for the students – for all of us.

I’ve never put myself in the shoes of a mentor before like I had with this, and it was a learning curve I had to self-develop. But I feel honoured for the opportunity to share my learnings and perhaps the students will add this piece of credentials into their portfolios.

For many of the students, it was their first time interviewing someone for a news media outlet. And for some of the nominees, it was their first time taking part in an interview. It was a privilege to watch it all in action, and I was mesmerized at how natural and comfortable they all were in these positions.

Well done to the MACOY’s General Assembly on their hard work and dedication to our inaugural Top 20. Their efforts will play a big part in the direction of the project moving forward.

Thank you to all the Top 20 nominees for everything you do for our community and for trusting us to share your incredible stories. We wish you the best in all of your life ventures.

Warm regards,

Dawn Booth

Editor-in-Chief of YMM Parent Magazine

About the author

Dawn Booth

Editor-in-Chief at YMM Parent | dawn@balsom.ca

Dawn Booth is the Editor-in-Chief of YMM Parent Magazine and Your McMurray Magazine. She has actively worked in the Wood Buffalo region's media industry since residing in Fort McMurray in 2007.

Her passion is writing poetry and puts it at the forefront of the community through her volunteer work as the President of NorthWord Magazine. Most important, Booth puts her family of five first, which includes her husband Ryan and their three children, Landon, Dawson and Tessa.