Mentoring for Women in STEM
We want to provide free access to our world class online mentoring program to women from a low income background or who are the first in their family to study or work in STEM in the UK.
We know that mentoring is a powerful way for women to improve their career prospects and successfully meet career challenges, yet 73% of the women in STEM that we surveyed had never had a mentor.
We also know that the COVID-19 pandemic has done some serious damage to women’s careers. Many women have had to leave the workforce because of childcare issues. Researchers have not been able to work in the field and many have had to stop collecting data. And women are submitting fewer grants and fewer papers than men.
Mentoring can help women get through these difficult times, and can help them to progress their careers faster. We know that both mentors and mentees gain valuable skills through mentoring, and that they are promoted at a much higher rate than those who do not experience mentoring.
But many organisations are reevaluating the services they provide, and many don’t provide mentoring specifically for women. Just when women need mentoring the most, it’s getting harder for them to access it.
We want to provide access to the Finding Ada Network to 50 low income background or first generation women at any stage of their career in STEM in the UK. They might be in academia, industry, unemployed or in the later stages of their education (eg completed your bachelor’s degree).
In order to do this, we need to raise £2,500 to cover our costs.
When we hit £1,000 we will open up applications, and we’ll onboard people in groups on a regular basis. If we raise more than our target, then we’ll increase the number of places available.
Participants will get one year’s free access to our online mentoring platform, our exclusive careers and skills content, webinars, and a broad community of other women in STEM.
So please help us make this happen. Women need this kind of support more now than ever, and your donation will give someone a potentially life changing mentoring experience.
