Mentoring and Empowerment for Southern female students - 5th edition

The project - designed to promote inclusion and gender equity - offers opportunities for development and growth to female students from Southern Italy enrolled in Master's degree courses in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic) and economics disciplines.
Also this fifth edition - again organised by Ortygia Business School, which has long been committed to the development of projects for female empowerment - sees the collaboration of several companies united by their attention to the issues of inclusion and gender equality. These include Intesa Sanpaolo as main partner.
The more than 100 young female students (mentees) who took part in the initiative, were individually supported by an equal number of managers (mentors) covering different roles and functions in the companies involved. The mentees were selected from 12 universities in Southern Italy: University of Naples-Federico II, Polytechnic University of Bari, University of Calabria, University of Palermo, University of Catania, University of Cagliari, University of Messina, University of Naples Parthenope, University of Salento, University of Salerno, University of Reggio Calabria, University of Bari. 

The project applies the mentoring of established professionals to provide young students with useful tools to recognize their strengths and inclinations, encouraging them to be ambitious in planning their future.
In the six-month mentoring program, mentees will be guided in exploring the world of work. The mentor-mentee relationship - based on trust and mutual listening - develops with a continuous exchange and comparison between different approaches and points of view.
This comparison creates personal and professional points of connection that become a space for growth for both protagonists. On the one hand, young female students, by becoming aware of their personal skills and the many opportunities that exist in the world of work, will be more prepared and specific in imagining their future. On the other hand, the mentors will benefit from a fruitful comparison with each other and in particular with the young mentees.
We believe that mentoring is a successful methodology for the transfer of knowledge and professional skills, and also the experience and the ability to listen and openness of mentors allows the mentees to know the context and understand the business dynamics to be acted in order to access and integrate into the professional realities that await them.
The collaboration on the project Young Women Empowerment Program is inspired by the firm will to create opportunities to work on the personal development of young female students from Southern Italy and to increase their chances of accessing study and career paths.
The initiative is therefore a precious opportunity in the effort to overcome stereotypes and barriers through the comparison between generations, developing new self-esteem, ambition and the ability to self-fulfillment.

The fifth edition included 6 individual mentoring sessions lasting about 1 hour. In addition, listening focuses and in-depth plenary meetings on topics of interest by the companies involved were organised during the course. 

From the different stories of the mentees came out, a strong desire to learn from the expertise of the mentors, a good willingness to receive feedback, as well as the curiosity to explore the business areas for professional growth. Also become clear the aptitude to focus on the development of the soft skills deemed necessary to achieve goals, in addition to the knowledge of the rules, behaviors and company networks necessary for professional growth.
 

The mentors also talked about the experience of the mentoring relationship with young female students as a means of mutual learning, which is based on genuine interest in people and their needs, a great willingness to spend time in the development path and above all the flexibility and the ability to question oneself to be a good support.

From the comments of the protagonists, we note that once again mentoring proved to be a two-way training experience that generates countless benefits in professional, personal and managerial development for both parties.Once again, the programme was an opportunity to enhance the value of young university women, helping them to direct their talents and enter the world of work with greater confidence and security.
Once again, Intesa Sanpaolo, by supporting the Young Women Empowerment Program, was able to make its contribution to countering the gender gap phenomenon, which unfortunately is still present today, as revealed by the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2024, women represent only 29.9% of those working as professionals in the STEM sector.