Building on the Appraisal Phase, PFG invites committed FG students and HEI partners to be an active part in capacity-building sessions. There, FG students reflect on their experiences, explore mentoring tools, and deepen their understanding of higher education equity.
The challenging social dimension that FG students experience impacts their sense of belonging, participation, and academic orientation. This shapes how FG students progress throughout their educational journeys and their capacity to develop their own academic roadmaps. Peer mentoring addresses this gap by transforming their own social experiences into an opportunity to support others with a similar background.
The Pilot Phase introduces a first cohort of FG students to peer mentoring tools across multiple sessions. Through participatory workshops and roleplays, participants reflect on their own experiences as FG students and explore how these connect to their future mentorship and the concept of higher education equity. Furthermore, the sessions will provide the participants with mentoring tools tailored to that shared context. They are encouraged to experiment with the tools in roleplays to strengthen their capacities in mentoring other FG students. HEI focal persons are invited to be partners in developing and facilitating the sessions to include their expertise and share learnings.
This phase serves two goals: First, it capacitates a first cohort of FG students to employ mentoring tools grounded in their individual reflection and understanding of higher education equity. This cohort will enable PFG’s first longer-term project aiming to develop a sustainable mentoring cycle where FG student mentees can later become mentors themselves and link to other students through a managed mentoring pool. The second goal is to identify lessons and challenges drawn from working together with FG students, which will shape PFG’s approach to complement existing HEI support mechanisms.
Project FirstGen Philippines 