Big Brothers Family Mentoring

Big Brother and Big Sisters: Mentoring for Change
Big Brothers and Big Sisters is an organization committed to the well-being of youth and children across the world. In 1904, Ernest Young, a journalist, founded New York Big Brothers, formerly called New York Children’s court, to provide support for young male offenders (Uhle, 2007). At the same time, Ladies of Charity changed its name to Catholic Big Sisters to help young female offenders. In 1977, the two organizations merged to form Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America, which would then lead to the formation of Big Brothers and Big Sisters International in 1998. Currently, the organization works in 14 countries across the world including Canada and the United States (Big Brother and Big Sisters International, n.d.). Their goal is to help children around the world realize their potential, thereby reducing poverty, crime and unemployment, through one-on-one mentoring programs, while striving to respect diversity and the individual needs of children and youth.

The program organizes regular online communication between high school students and mentors that work in their dream career. This form of e-mentoring addresses the education, communication, geographic and cultural gaps that exist in Canada. Josh Silvertown initially created the program over a decade ago in an attempt to reduce the high drop out rates of high school students in Northern Canada (Brown, 2014). In fall 2013, Josh Silvertown handed the program over to Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Canada. The organization continues to run the initiative to benefit Northern Canadian high school