Invisible Children’s Legacy Scholarship Program (LSP) mentors reach out to students in a variety of ways, like monitoring the academic performance of students, helping them improve grades, and giving them the tools to live responsibly.

It’s a big job, being there to help students through the challenges they face academically and socially, so mentors have refresher trainings once every three months so they will be ready to deal with the issues their students are facing.

During the most recent training, the mentors were able to discuss counseling and guidance, psychosocial support and gender-based violence – topics that they need to understand in order to provide their mentees with the best possible support.

Kristie, the psychosocial officer for Invisible Children, explained that though counseling and guidance and psychosocial support might seemingly appear to be the same, they cover different areas of a student’s life. “Counseling and guidance aim at one’s career goals whereas psychosocial support is much broader, it involves one’s physical, spiritual and emotional growth,” she explained.

Mentoring requires being able to engage students and encourage growth in all aspects of life, to do everything possible to equip students to be the future leaders of Uganda. Students are admitted into the LSP program based on aptitude for academics as well as level of vulnerability. Overcoming those vulnerabilities with the help of a mentor places students on the path to success.