Bahrain’s Tamkeen and the UK-based Mowgli Foundation have concluded a four-day Kickstart workshop which successfully matched 15 Bahraini entrepreneurs with 15 trained mentors.

The workshop was the first milestone of the Mowgli Mentoring Experience programme (MME), a year-long mentoring relationship designed to empower entrepreneurs and develop their personal and business capabilities.

Tamkeen chief executive, Dr Ebrahim Mohamed Janahi commented: “Tamkeen works on supporting Bahrainis across all stages of development. As part of this, it’s important that Bahraini entrepreneurs are given the right guidance and support along their development journey to be able to realise their goals and objectives. Through our partnership with Mowgli, which comes as part of Tamkeen’s advisory services, a group of Bahraini businesses will be able to receive long-term mentorship support from industry veterans and experts.” 

Mowgli CEO Kathleen Bury, said: "Our programmes are designed to train and prepare mentors on how to effectively mentor their matched entrepreneurs as well as others. The matching process is conducted in a manner that enables each entrepreneur to be matched with the right mentor for them, to enable a solid and trust based mentoring relationship to be formed. It is truly an art and not a science."

“True mentoring is the key to empowering entrepreneurs. They do not need to be alone when facing the challenges associated with establishing or growing a business; having an objective support structure in the form of a trained mentor can keep them on the right track towards achieving their goals, support them in scenario planning and making sound decisions and continuously developing themselves on both personal and professional fronts,” she added.

A structured, facilitated and supervised 12-month mentoring relationship between each entrepreneur and mentor now begins with various events, connection and impact data collection points to monitor and evaluate Mowgli’s 3 areas of impact: economic, business and personal.

This partnership comes as one of the first initiatives that are part of Tamkeen’s Advisory Services, a platform that Tamkeen launched to achieve the best possible results. The platform provides advisory and consultancy services to businesses, job-seekers and employees through a team of experts and industry veterans. This comes alongside the financial, operational and training support that Tamkeen provides to Bahraini businesses and individuals.

Tamkeen is a semi-government organisation in Bahrain established with the task of making the private sector as the key driver of sustainable economic development.

The Mowgli Foundation is an international UK headquartered award-winning mentoring organisation that works with international and local governments, financial institutions, philanthropists and corporates globally to provide mentoring programs that empower entrepreneurs to drive economic growth and strengthen leadership. – TradeArabia News Service