What a Mentor Makes Possible

When Mariam Mohamed saw an opportunity to become a mentor to a young Black high school student, through U of T Scarborough’s Imani Black Academic Mentorship Program, she signed herself up.

“Personally, I’m really into mentoring and mentorship,” says Mohamed, a first-year student at U of T Scarborough. “It’s what got me to U of T, and into a sciences program.”

At 16, she’d participated in the Summer Mentorship Program at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, which allowed her to shadow a physician and nurture her dream of becoming a doctor. “It was the bond that she had with her patients – the trust they had with each other. Seeing that in action, I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do.’”

Now, two years later, through Imani, Mohamed is the mentor, working one-on-one with 17-year-old Aiyana Walker, a Grade 12 student at West Hill Collegiate Institute in Scarborough. They are both “STEM baddies,” Mohamed says – committed to being themselves in the male-dominated field of science, technology, engineering and math. Their personalities mesh, too: “We’re both very loud and very talkative,” says Walker. “We instantly clicked.”

The pair meet once a week in a large room on the UTSC campus alongside other mentor-mentee partners. They share food – pizza, jollof rice, jerk chicken. They learn about Black culture and history – hip hop, drumming, consequential Black leaders, the meaning of “Sankofa.” During one-on-one time, they also talk about their favourite movies or memes, do homework and share concerns.

Walker says Mohamed has helped bolster her skills in math and chemistry – subjects in which Walker felt underconfident. Mohamed has also helped her feel comfortable having a big personality. “Sometimes I have to dull myself down to fit in with others,” says Walker. “But when I met Mariam, I was able to express myself 110 per cent because she can match my energy.”

For her part, Mohamed knew how challenging Grade 12 could be. She says she feels like a “big sister” supporting Walker through a stressful year. “I just want Aiyana to give it her all,” says Mohamed. “This is the last hurrah of high school. It’s intense, but I know she can get through it.”

Walker first joined Imani, which means “faith” or “belief” in Swahili, in Grade 8. Mentees in various grades do things like work on their resumes, learn about money management, make presentations and write letters to their future selves. But Grade 12 students like Walker also focus on applying to university. Imani helps them consider programs, prepare applications – and it even covers their application fees.

Walker was already committed to going to university and had a clear sense of what she wanted to study. But Mohamed helped reassure her about her grades and encouraged her to consider additional programs.

Mohamed, who is the first in her family to pursue higher education in Canada, says she understands how confusing the process can be. Mentees, she says, “have all sorts of questions, especially ones relating to our identity as Black students and what type of supports and resources are available.”

She notes that many Black students share the experience of feeling discouraged from challenging themselves academically. Mohamed recalls an experience, in math class, when a teacher who was encouraging students to do even more advanced math singled Mohamed out as someone who perhaps shouldn’t bother. She noticed that peers with similar marks – who were not Black – received specific, constructive guidance on how to improve, while her feedback was consistently limited to a vague “try a little harder.”

“If I had gotten more inspiring, uplifting feedback, I think I would have been more likely to take on such a hard subject and find passion in it,” Mohamed says. She did not end up doing the more challenging math. Mohamed says she doesn’t want Walker to ever feel that way. “I never want her to feel like she can’t do something just because someone else tells her not to, or because she feels like she doesn’t belong.”

The Imani Mentorship Program was founded in 2005 by UTSC student Rashelle Litchmore, who had moved to Canada from Jamaica at 15 and was struck by how few Black students were placed in academic-stream classes. “There were a lot of Black kids in the school,” she recalls, “but no Black kids in my classes.”

That sense of belonging – of not doing this alone – is what makes the program work.”

At UTSC, Litchmore imagined a program that went beyond tutoring – one that paired mentorship with exposure to Black history and culture, and brought high school students onto campus so they could picture themselves there.

Imani began as a mostly student volunteer-driven initiative and gained vital support in 2007 from UTSC alumna and then provincial cabinet minister Mary Anne Chambers, at a time when data showed about 40 per cent of Black students were not graduating from high school. With sustained backing from Chambers, and subsequently Scotiabank and the university, Imani grew. Over the years, hundreds of Black students have benefited from the relationships the program fostered.

For Litchmore, now an assistant professor of human development, that sense of community remains central to Imani. “Black students are still a small percentage of university attendees,” she says. “That sense of belonging – of not doing this alone – is what makes the program work.”

Mohamed’s experience reflects that sentiment. Through Imani, she has built a network of fellow mentors that have helped her navigate campus life. “They are more than just people I volunteer with,” she says. “They are actual colleagues.”

For mentees, the impact can be even more powerful. Mohamed says the mere fact that she made it into university allows younger students to believe they can too. “You walk the path,” she says, “and you clear it a little bit for them.”

In her letter to her future self, Walker told herself to feel proud – and to remember how hard she had worked. “Even if the path was long, even if you had to take corners and you didn’t go along the straight path, you should acknowledge that you did work hard and you got to where you are now,” she wrote. Everything would be okay, she reassured her future self. “I told myself that I will get into my dream program, into my dream university, and that I will succeed in life.”

In late December, Walker received early conditional admission – with a scholarship – to York University’s biomedical science program. She accepted.