The 14th of November Carina Sild Lönroth, the founder of Näktergalen Malmö and the International Nightingale network, received her second honorary doctorate for her diligent work with the Nightingale mentoring program throughout the years, this time at Universitat de Girona in Catalonia where Rossignol (Nightingale) has been active since 2007.
Carina received her first honorary doctorate at Karlstads universitet, Sweden, in 2021.
Rector of Universitat de Girona, Quim Salvi Mas and Carina Sild-Lönroth Photo from UDG’s broadcast from the ceremony on Youtube
In her speach Carina gave credit to all the mentors and co-workers across Europe and Africa for believing in, and being part of the program, and I think I speak for all of us when I say I am proud and grateful to have had the opportunity, and I really want to congratulate Carina on her award!
Other news is that the board is currently planning the necxt network meeting which will be held in Bergen, Norway in April (3rd-4th). More information will be available soon.
All the best, Miriam Ånskog, chairman of the board
The Nightingales/Nattergalen/Näktergalen/Rossinyols! What an incredible team! Even though we missed some who couldn’t´ come (but maybe they join us next time!)
I, Carina want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the Girona team for organizing and arranging this conference so fantastic in many ways and also thanks to the board as well. Singing along with you all in the Abba song: “Thank you for the friendship” for giving it to me truly encapsulates my feeling. These 14 years in the network have been nothing short of amazing. Getting to know each of you, sharing wonderful moments, advancing our work, exchanging ideas, conducting research and engaging in fruitful discussions about our Nightingale concept have been invaluable experience.
Now I proudly wear this little Nightingale brooch from you, it serves a constant reminder of kindness. THANK YOU. It will have a special place in my heart.
Perhaps I’ll have the chance to return with some lines in December… I am still a bit overwhelmed by the surprise I received at the ceremony . Words cant´fully express my gratitude.
With this, my final newsletter, I extend a warm welcome to Miriam, Max and Malin from Malmö Näktergalen to join the board. I feel happy to entrust them with the responsibility, and I am filled with calm and optimism for the future of the Nightingale Network. We have already finalized the new board, which will include members of the Malmö team, as well of Núria, Spain and Cecilie from Norway, who will continue their roles, and possibly Peter from Berlin. Joining them will be the newest board member Nattergalen Bergen from Norway.
Last night with friends in the Nightingale mentoring network
More photos Núria has already sent you a lot of nice photos as well you have got the PPT from Eila and Oscar. I have also put a nice photo on our LinkedIn page.
New research There is put a new research, please look at the page “About” Click “Research about mentoring.” It is an article which reminds a lot of what we talk about at the workshop in Girona.
Next meeting and conference
Next meeting will hopefully be 2025 in Bergen, Norway. Here a photo of the solemnly surrender of the Nightingale flag from Girona to Bergen!
Finally….best wishes to all of you, let the Nightingale continue to sing high and load! You are the best suited for that.
The 13th Network Meeting and Conference is approaching which as you know will take place in Spain, at the University of Girona, the 22nd of February – 23rd of February. This Conference will be focusing on the theme “Intersectionality”, with a specific focus on gender and race dimensions. Here you can download the updated Conference Agenda.
The adress to the University, Faculty of Education and Psychology of the University of Girona is: Plaça Sant Domènec, 9, 17004, Girona
Remember to register! Registration closes 16th of February 2024. The registration fee is €200 until the 31st of January and €250 after this date until the registration deadline.
Dear Nightingale fríends, this special newsletter contains details regarding our upcoming 13th International Nightingale Conference in Girona.
Here´s some essential information shared by our partners in Girona:
TRAVEL INFORMATION TO GIRONA To travel to Girona you can fly to Barcelona Airport (the most common) or you can come directly to Girona Airport (but there are very few flights).
FROM BARCELONA There are no direct trains from Barcelona Airport to Girona. Therefore, it is necessary to take a train into the center of Barcelona to head out towards Northern Catalunya. Take the Barcelona Airport train to Estació Sants. At Estació Sants you will need to change.If you are arriving into Terminal 1 (T1) you will not be able to walk straight to the train station, as it is 4km away. You will need to take a shuttle bus from outside the terminal.
There are numerous trains travelling from Estació Sants to Girona – approximately three every hour. On average the journey lasts about 1 hour 20 minutes. Check the RENFE Website for the train times.
Another option is to come by bus. We recommend you check the following Bus website for availability, timetables and pricing because they vary greatly depending on the time of year. Sometimes the services are running with reduced frequency or do not run at all. To know more details or other possible options, you can visit this website with all the information here
From Girona Airport There are taxis available from Gerona airport. The taxi rank is right outside the terminal building. There’s also a free phone inside the arrivals hall where you can call for a taxi. There are two taxi firms that serve the airport. The taxis come from either Girona centre or from a village near the airport.
HOTEL INFORMATION Girona is not a very big city, so it is easy to find accommodation relatively close to the University and the Train Station. Here´s an image of the map and in this link you will find it with the location of the hotels, the University and the Train Station:
The most recommended hotels for quality/price are: Hotel Carlemany Girona **** 📍 Plaça Miquel Santaló i Pavor, 1, 17002 Girona 👣 4 min by car / 5 min by walk from the Train Station 🎓 13 min by walk to the University of Girona
Hotel Penisular Girona *** 📍 Av. de Sant Francesc, 6, 17001 Girona 👣 8 min by car / 10 min by walk from the Train Station 🎓 10 min by walk to the University of Girona
Hotel Ultonia Girona **** 📍 Gran Via de Jaume I, 22, 17001 Girona 👣 6 min by car / 11 min by walk from the Train Station 🎓 9 min by walk to the University of Girona
Hotel Ciutat Girona **** 📍 Carrer del Nord, 2, 17001 Girona 👣 6 min by car / 12 min by walk from the Train Station 🎓 7 min by walk to the University of Girona
And last reminder, do not forget to register! Register here
The board wishes you all a Happy holiday season, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We look forward to seeing you in Girona 2024!
Dear Nightingales, another Nightingale year have started, and some have already been actively engaged for some month. Our upcoming live meeting in Girona for the 13th Nightingale Conference is getting closer.
The board have had several meetings to deliberate upon the Conference, and we have almost finalized the program but there are some small things left. Shortly, you will receive the Conference link containing the agenda, recommended accommodations, and registration instructions, all essential for the confereence proceedings.
The conference Our 13th Conference will be held in the lovely city of Girona, focusing on the theme Intersectionality, with a specific focus on gender and race dimensions.
Before we all meet we think it can be fruitful if partners begin to reflect about the topic before our workshop.
Sexism *Have you ever encountered a situation where your mentees or family members did not want to be paired with mentors of the opposite sex?
Have you ever encountered a situation where traditional gender roles were an obstacle to mentoring (e.g. girls having to take care of their younger brothers, etc.)?
Have you ever come across situations where, through the mentors, you discovered:
i) a situation of gender-based violence in the mentee’s family context?
ii) or bullying because of the mentee’s sexuality (homophobia, LGBTI-phobia, etc.)?
iii) Other?
How did you deal with it? How would you do it?
Racism *Have you ever come across mentors who have a very paternalistic and nativist view of how mentoring should be carried out? For example, some mentors may even think that mentees need to adopt the cultural traditions of the host context in order to feel integrated?
Have you noticed that mentees have had difficulty making friends or feeling accepted because of their immigrant background?
Have you come across comments from mentors about mentees who have identified a situation of injustice because of their background? How can you reflect together and act as a project?
The Rossinyols in Girona have now officially invited us to the next Conference/Network Meeting: February 22nd to February 23rd, 2024 in Girona.
The central theme of this conference will beIntersectionality, which short can be described as to explore how various factors such as gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic background can intersect and influence the opportunities and experiences of mentees and mentors.
The program will start on February 22nd at 09:00 with an Opening session. There is a draft version of the program but it might be changed since the board will discuss it further again in the board meeting the 12th of September. But if you now have any suggestions or ideas please let us know.
The fee for the Conference will be 200€ and includes coffee, lunch, guided tour and a joint dinner the first day. It also includes coffee and lunch second day (and renting the rooms and some gifts or profile products).
For partners arriving on the evening of February 21st, there will as usual also be a gathering at a restaurant this the evening.
Now this Nightingale year has gone to its end and we wish you a nice holiday whenever it starts. We will be in touch again in September and will then let you know more about the Conference. But we hope you already now put the date into your agenda so we will be able to meet in February 2024.
The board wishes all of you a nice and relaxing summer vacation!
Also the AI wishes us this by writing something to us about our Nightingale mentoring Network.
“In the forest of career growth, where the trees are tall and strong, The Nightingale sings a song, of mentorship, of guidance and hope.
With a network of wise owls, and eagles who have soared high, The Nightingale brings together, mentors and mentees to fly.
The journey is not always easy, but with a mentor by your side, You can navigate through the dark, and reach the other side.
The Nightingale’s network is vast, and it knows no bounds or limits, for it is fueled by the passion, of mentors who are committed.
So if you seek to grow and learn, and want to soar to new heights, join the Nightingale’s mentoring network, and let your career take flight.”
Happy news Last meeting in Berlin the Nightingale flag has been passed on to our colleague at Girona University, Rossinyol, to arrange the next network Meeting/Conference for us!
Now it is decided- next Network Meeting/Conference 2024 will be held in Girona, Catalonia, Spain!
Carina hand over the flag to Núria
As usual, the event will take place in February, around Thursday the 22nd (plus or minus one day), 2024 during week number 8. We hope that all partners can participate, even though it may coincide with the holiday week in some countries.
The upcoming Board Meeting on May 15th will involve discussions on a draft version of the Network Meeting/Conference content, agenda, and themes to focus on. We will keep you updated as soon as possible following the meeting.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION A new MENTOR evaluation to strengthened our network and the work we do together During our recent Network Meeting in Berlin, we discussed the importance of compiling data and assessing the impact of Nightingale Mentoring across Europe. Although we have conducted an evaluation in the past, we have decided to conduct a new one. We kindly ask that your mentors complete the evaluation before their mentoring comes to an end. This will help us gather important figures and measure the effects of our program. Your mentors answer is of importance for all of us. Please answer at latest Wednesday June 30th. Click here to get the evaluation
PARTNER NEWS
Óscar Prieto
Youth Mentoring The 14th annual Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring will be held in Portland State University July 24-27, 2023 and will focus on the theme of mentoring to address the public healthissue of loneliness and social isolation. Sessions with leading scholars will explore how mentoring can promote connection, social inclusion, and a sense of belonging.
Featured speakers for 2023 will include Polly Gipson Allen (University ofMichigan), Westley Fallovollita (University of Virginia), Oscar PrietoFlores (University of Girona, Spain), Michael Karcher (University of Texasat San Antonio), and Lindsey Weiler (University of Minnesota).
The yearbook of International Organizations Nightingale Mentoring Network is listed in the Yearbook of International Organizations, a publication of the Union of International Associations. The organisation is an independent, not-for-profit research institute founded in 1907 to promote and facilitate the work of international associations. Click here to read more
The upcoming newsletter in June, prior to the summer vacation, will contain additional details regarding the Network Meeting/Conference scheduled to take place in Girona.
THANK YOU ALL Nightingale friends who joined the Network Meeting in Berlin.
With this meeting we demonstrate the value of mentoring, for us and for important institutions.(evaluation from a post-it note)
It was so nice to meet in real life again. 22 persons together from five different countries. It was really a kick-off event for feeling the importance of being together and meet. Peters colleague have said they could hear our laughter to the next room and they could really feel the nice and warm atmosphere in the room. As one partner of us also wrote on the Post-it note: So much positive energy and inspiration!
Partners also agreed on how fruitful it was to be able to meet again and have experience exchange. However, as one member pointed out, some network members have been in the Nightingale for a short time, and they may want to hear about how the program works and is organized in different places. This is something for the board to think about for next meeting. Maybe also prepare more before the meeting to be more effective, as another partner wrote. The compilation of our Post-It notes it shows however very positive answers; from fruitful discussions, much positive energy and inspiration, fun and laughter, great food and love the guided tour! If you want to read the compilation/evaluation from your post-it notes you can click here and download it.
A special thank you to Peter ( and his team in Berlin)
You will find more photos from Berlin on the page “For members”, click “Network Meetings.” If you have any photos you would like to share or publish on our webpage, please send them to Carina. Please also send photos, especially from the fantastic dinner at Otto Wells Grundshule.
The board will soon begin to work on the next Network meeting, next year, hopefully it will be held in Girona, Spain. If you have any special ideas or thoughts for next year meeting, please let us know.
PARTNER NEWS It is so nice to share the news and success of The Nightingale project in Finland, now being published in a Finish Newsletter and also in the Finish Broadcast ( In Swedish. The reportage about The Nightingale starts after approximately 18 minutes)
Don’t forget to sometime look into Research page……it is updated continuously.
Dear Nightingale friends and Network partners, hope you all have had a relaxing vacation and are now back with new energy. We hope to meet you soon in Berlin and are looking forward to finally meet physically and to be able to have experience exchange together again.
Below you can see some important information about our 12th International Nightingale Network Meeting “The Nightingale- Past, Present and Future” in Berlin the 23rd – 24th of February.
As already mentioned we will work with the UN Global Goals. We want to highlight what has been and will in the future be the Nightingale values, by reflecting and compare our ideas with UN Agenda 2030.
HERE you can reach the homepage for the Network Meeting on the Berlin institute page. There are further information’s but more information will be added soon.
The Network Meeting will cost only 100€ and include everything: coffee, lunch, dinner and the cost of renting rooms, guided tours etc.
The registration fee had to be split due to different taxation. VIA THIS LINK you reach the registration for the network meeting. It is important that you fill in both check marks 30 € for the Conference Contribution and 70 € for the Conference Program.
PARTNER NEWS Barcelona Rossinyols want to share some nice photos and info with you.
Here in Barcelona, like every year, we tried to increase the number of mentoring pairs, consolidating mentoring in different cities. Nowadays we are more than 100 pairs and all of them already know each other! We want to highlight a girl who had a lot of communication difficulties and couldn’t speak in the school, family or with other people, but during the presentation we could see his eyes glaze with emotion. For us was key to see the impact of mentoring.
Biden is also sharing some thoughts with us about mentoring !
…even president Biden think mentoring is important, it open doors of opportunities and support children.
A new semester has started and almost ended, and we have a lot of new Nightingale tandems all around Europe. Best wishes to all of you! It would be great if we could share some photos of different events or from just a mentor-mentee meeting even though we all have to think about GDPR. Maybe you can send photos to ( Carina) to be uploaded on our webpage and show others how many places The Nightingale Program are running.
Here some pictures from the Kick-Off in Girona Spain, Malmö and Karlstad in Sweden.
Rossinyol, Spain and Näktergalen Malmö
Headmaster and children Näktergalen Karlstad
HAPPY NEWS Finally we have the possibility to meet again! We are so happy to announce Next Nightingale Network Meeting, the 13th will be held live in BERLIN the 23rd – 24th of February
All of us have now worked hard with the Nightingale during Covid restriction and quite often we work alone. That is why we want to meet again live and have experience exchange but we both also want to do something valuable for the Nightingale project/program.
CONTENT We want to look back at the last 26 years of Nightingale (since 1997 in Malmö, Sweden ) share the present and the experiences of the last year, as well as look into the future. The question we want to raise is, what is the value of the Nightingale by taking a closer look on what make Nightingale so unique and meaningful. We want to use the Bronfebrenner´s model and focus on different perspectives, from a micro level to a macro level by looking on the effects on: -Mentors and mentees/parents, other keypersons -Organizations involved, school, University etc. – The society
We also want to focus on a particular concern regarding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. How can we work with these values now and in the future? What contribution does the Nightingale offer in a larger framework for the question of democracy? In doing so, we will look back on the many years of experience and research of the project and consider together how we can accentuate the social and political significance more concretely for the future.
PROGRAM Wednesday the 22nd of February. Individual arrival. For those who arrive in Berlin there will be an optional gathering at 19.30 in the evening.
Thursday the 23rd of February The Network Meeting will start at 10 o´clock in the morning. In the afternoon/evening there will be a cultural program/activity. And in the evening a joint dinner together.
Friday the 24th of February – The Nightingale Day. We will start at 9.00 o´clock and the program will end 2 o´clock with a lunch together from 1 o´clock.
There will be a webpage with more information in the beginning of January 2023. You will have the possibly to register from the 9th of January until the 22 January 2023.
PRIZE The prize with be only 100€ were almost everything will be included: lunch, dinner, and an event.
HOTEL There will be on hotel reservation for us at Hotel Steglitz International, Berlin ( 20 room) Prices per room per day: 90,00 €/single room.
PARTNER NEWS
New coordinator We would like to welcome the new coordinator i Nattergalen Agder, Norway: Janne Lund is the new coordinator at the University of Agder. She teaches at the education of child welfare pedagogics and social work and is especially concerned about the everyday life of children and adolescents.
National Network Meeting Sweden/Finland was held in Karlstad the 23-24th of November.
from left: Petra, Miriam, Sara from right Ann and Carina Richi from Finland and Carina
Petra, the host in Karlstad, Miriam, Sara and Carina from Näktergalen Malmö and Ann from Näktergalen Trollhättan. Richi from Näktergalen Finland was with us from a link.
Bank grants to Näktergalen Malmö Näktergalen Malmö have made an application to the bank Sparbankstiftelsen Finn and got a fund which now make it possible to give a scholarship to all our mentors, tax free.
New research, on the page Research about mentoring. Research shown that effective teacher-student relationships influence students’ social function, such as behavioral problems, academic achievement, and engagement in learning activities. Please read more.
The board wishes Happy weekends to all of you! Merry, merry Christmas and Happy New Year. See you live in Berlin 2023!
