Mentor Together

The start of Mentor Together is a story that reaffirms the power of mentorship. As a soon-to-be college graduate in 2007, Arundhuti Gupta had several ideas about how she could make a difference in her city, but needed an initial push and a safe space to explore her abilities. Dr.Rajeev Gowda was a Professor of Economics and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore, striving to create a rich ecosystem in the city for young people to realize their true potentials. After a chance meeting at an educational conference, Dr.Gowda invited Arundhuti to join him in the start-up activities of a youth empowerment organization.From their initial experiences organizing career fairs in 2007, sprang ideas on the importance of trusted support figures for young people, during critical periods in their lives. Parallely, experiencing the power of Dr.Gowda’s own mentorship in her life, Arundhuti realized how empowered she felt helping young people. In 2009, she worked on the blueprint of a youth-mentoring NGO, while finishing her Master’s at the University of Manchester. Arundhuti and Rajeev formally registered Mentor Together as a Public Charitable Trust in November 2009, to pay forward their chance mentorship into a movement to help young people at-risk find caring and committed mentors.