Thursday, 6 November 2014

063 - ŽAR Mentoring Project: Supporting the Professional Development of Croatians in Croatia and the Diaspora

063 - ŽAR Mentoring Project: Supporting the Professional Development of Croatians in Croatia and the Diaspora

Natasha Levak
(University of Southern Queensland, Australija)

The benefits of mentoring for career development are well documented. Mentoring has also been identified as providing benefits for the mentors. E-mentoring, that is, mentoring which is enabled and enhanced through the use of technology has been successful in promoting the development of females in the STEM (Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics) areas in which women have been underrepresented although they are able to achieve as successfully as their male counterparts.

E-mentoring circles allow professionals the opportunity to connect and develop support networks enabling the creation of communities of practice by removing the geographical boundaries thus providing opportunities for mutually beneficial collaboration between professionals in Croatia and the Diaspora.

This presentation will provide an overview of ŽAR (Župa aktivno radi), a not for profit group that began in Župa near Dubrovnik, Croatia. ŽAR’s goals and the current focus ŽAR mentoring projects will be outlined. These projects include: face-to-face mentoring in Croatia as well as the establishment of an e-mentoring community consisting of members from Croatia and the Diaspora.

The processes that have been established to scaffold the projects’ development over the next two years will be discussed. Achievement made to date will be presented including the results of a mentoring training day with professionals in Dubrovnik will be provided.

Paper presented at the First Croatian Emigration Congress, Zagreb 23 - 26 June 2014.


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