A programme to help young people in the Western Bay of Plenty community is on the lookout for 108 mentors from Katikati through to Te Puke – with 38 mentors needed for Te Puke alone.

Project K is a Graeme Dingle foundation programme designed for Year 10 students, building their confidence, teaching them life skills, promoting good health and encouraging a positive attitude.

The programme runs for 14 months and the foundation is on the lookout for 108 mentors from Katikati, Mount, Ōtūmoetai through to Te Puke – with 38 mentors needed for Te Puke.

'That's a lot of students that need that one on one mentoring,” says Dave Gillies, who has been a Project K mentor for eight years and is now mentoring his fourth student.

'If you feel you can commit half an hour to an hour a week out of your life – then that's a really good thing to do and you'll see these young people develop.”

Dave says when he meets students starting Project K, they don't see who they are as a person or possibility for themselves. That changes, however. 'By the end of the programme they can see what they're capable of. They can see a future. They can see a possibility – that for me is the biggest thing because if you can't see possibility for yourself, then you can't see a future.”

So what does mentoring look like? Dave says: 'Anything from sitting talking, playing cards, going for a walk, going for a drive, mountain biking, fishing, all sorts of stuff.”

He adds that good qualities for a mentor are: 'good listening, awareness around what people say and what they don't say, acknowledging, and ability to build trust”.

Through mentoring, Dave reckons he's developed greater awareness of himself. 'I can reflect on my kids and how I could've done things slightly differently as well, and I have been then been able to share that with students I've been mentoring.”

He says you don't know how good you can be as a mentor. 'You're always better than you think you are, so just give it a punt, give it a go, you can only help…and just believe in yourself that you can do something good for these students.”

'It's challenging and rewarding at the same time because every person is different. For me, it's around wanting to give something back,” says Dave.

Training for new mentors will begin in March. For more information about becoming a Project K mentor, visit: https://dinglefoundation.org.nz/project-k/