I am called Mbabazi and work with Educate! Uganda as a program support officer. My first interface with Mentors Without Borders was in June when my supervisor Richard Luuba linked me to Edmond Pruteanu who started to take me through the first month of relaxation and after that i started being mentored by Philip de Smidt on programming.
My overall experience without borders
I have been able to be trained on how to execute the relaxation method, it’s one of the mechanisms used to relax your body and mind when faced with stressful situations when pursuing your goals, it enables you to be consistent in pursuing your set goal as you encounter discouragement on your way to achieving them.
I have also been able to interact with programming modules of html, CSS and Bootstrap so far, it has given me another dimension of life by getting me more and more interested in web programming specifically, i would not have discovered such passion without Mentors without Borders.
How i perceived the first month of preparation
I found the method very useful in dealing with stressful and emotional situations. The first month of preparation going through there relaxation method enabled me to learn how to deal with stressful situations and improved on my emotional intelligence, an area i had struggled in over the years growing up, i realised that i have improved greatly dealing with emotional and stressful situations while going through this first month of relaxation.
Edmond has been very insightful to me stressing the clear usefulness and need to always practice the method when faced with tough situations that tend to pull me away from achieving my goals.i have tried it several times and it has worked for me.
How the relaxation and mental process helped me after the first month of learning
I do it many times while i am doing programming exercises given to me by my mentor as it keeps me focused on the goal as to why i do programming which is to become a web programmer, and also enabling me to know the steps i have to go through to achieve it which are the different programming techniques.
My Experience of learning Programming so far
When i started the programming modules for example Html and CSS and Bootstrap my mind was intrigued and every day i wanted to learn more and more, Philip has been such a wonderful mentor, he is been patient with me when the learning is not going so well for me and changed the teaching approach to suit my adaptability to the learning process, i can now say i am enjoying the course because i can now see where it’s taking me that is achieving my goal of becoming a web programmer.
The Plan of teaching the relaxation method in January
After going through the relaxation method training with Edmond. We had discussions with Richard the Director of Program Implementation at Educate! Uganda and he consented to the idea of training the mentors who teach the Educate! program in schools during the January Induction where they will be trained residentially. So we tend to get time on training schedule to train the mentors who can always train their students on the relaxation method and thinking about their goals and the steps they need to take to achieve their goals.
The plan of teaching programming to others from Educate!
We also plan to teach 2 to 3 youth who are passionate bout programming and this is after they have gone through the crucial first month of relaxation method.
This will be done as they will be coming to the Educate! office premises for the training and will be trained by me. We plan to get these students from the mentors and former Educate! scholars in the Educate! partner schools who will be in their holidays next year before they join university.