“Creative mentorship” affirms mentoring as a tool of personal and professional development, strengthens the capacities of the cultural sector and provides support to prospective professionals interested in developing, networking and sharing knowledge and experience. We want to build, gather and support a community of motivated and socially responsible individuals that will contribute to the development of a society based on creativity, culture, knowledge and mutual cooperation.

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European students of cultural management met “Creative Mentorship” and discovered our methodology

During the last week, the team of “Creative Mentorship” visited the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater and worked with master’s students of cultural management from Tallinn, Riga, and Antwerp.

The Spring Mentoring Academy was held in Tallinn from 9 to 14 May, bringing together more than 30 students of the Master of Management in Culture and Arts from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater (EMTA), the Latvian Academy of Culture, and the University of Antwerp. The academy program aimed to improve the understanding, knowledge, information, and skills of future professionals in the field of cultural management, in the context of current existing mentoring programs in culture. Besides that, we also worked on the need to develop mentoring methodology in this sector and the introduction of more formal mentoring support for young professionals in art and creative industries in different European countries.

Lectures and workshops within the academy were led by members of our team, Dragana Jevtić, founder and director, and Tatjana Nikolić, program associate of “Creative Mentorship” and researcher at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, as well as prof. Annukka Jyrämä and Kaari Kiitsak-Prikk from EMTA, Hannele Känd from the Estonian Theater for Young Audiences, professors from the University of the Basque Country, Maria Saiz Santos, professor of Economics and Entrepreneurship and  Beatriz Plaza, professor of urban and regional economics,  Dr. Ieva Zemīte and Vita Dumpe from the Latvian Academy of Culture, as well as Dr. Annick Schramme and Nathalie Verboven from the University of Antwerp.

Some of the topics we discussed with cultural management students from different European countries during the Spring Mentoring Academy were mentoring principles and methods, mentoring and ethics building, professional identity development through mentoring, accessibility, equality and diversity in the cultural sector, mentoring as a tool for community development, goal setting, online mentoring and more. The “Creative Mentorship” team shared its ten years of experience in creating and implementing a mentoring program for the culture, arts, creative industries, and media sectors and its knowledge of the quality of mentoring relationships, prerequisites, benefits, and limitations in mentoring.

The Spring Mentoring Academy was held as part of the European initiative “Reinventing Mentorship in Arts Management” (REMAM) run by the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater. The University of the Basque Country, and the University of Antwerp. The initiative is implemented with the support of the Erasmus + program of the European Union.

Now, we are working on a collection of texts on various relevant mentoring programs in Europe that can serve as a useful resource for those interested in launching a new mentoring initiative for a specific group of beneficiaries. The authors from Belgium, Estonia, Latvia, Serbia, and Spain are writing on various aspects of mentoring in culture. The book will be published in 2023 and will be available free online.

In addition, “Creative Mentorship” manages the development of additional tools for personal and professional development and coordination, development, and nurturing of mentoring relationships and cooperation, which will be available to all interested parties from next year.