Category: Newsletters

Dear Nightingale friends,
hope all of you are ok and healthy!
I also hope you have been able to start a new Nightingale Year, although, all restrictions you might have done regarding the Covid-19. Surely nothing is like it has been. However it I think you have got a lot of interesting knowledge and it would be interesting to know more about what you have done, changed, learned and experienced during this time. That’s why we have planned a Zoominar in February next year. Let us meet, learn from each other and at the same time listen and discuss interesting themes, studied by two partners in our Nightingale Network. ( read more below) But first:

Nightingale has been selected as a good example by EU.
We got a letter saying:
“The European Commission would like to congratulate you on Nightingale, which we selected as an example of good practice in this month’s editorial of the School Education Gateway. We are impressed with your project, and thought it a good fit for this month’s topic, intercultural learning“. You can find it in 23 different languages. Read more here

THE NIGTINGALE FIRST ZOOMINAR , the 24^th of February 2021 “Dealing with challenges – Becoming Learning Potentials“. Mentoring from a holistic perspective. 

Let us come together and celebrate our Nightingale Day with a digital Network Meeting. This is an opportunity for all of us to learn more and have experience exchange!

We all have had to fight and tackle the Covid-19 and for most of us it has meant bigger challenges and difficulties. And at the same time many children and mentors are trapped in a type of isolation. Those tandems who have started must have physical distancing and most of us have got different restriction regarding gatherings. There is for example also less to do in the city. The libraries, theatre, sport arenas etc. are closed     

That´s why we want to take the opportunity to open a Zoominar of collaboration and experience exchange. This is also a possibility for all of us to set up a range of learning outcomes, provide help to each other and invite mentors or others working with us, for ex. “Contact persons” from participating school or people working in the municipality. 

Since there is a lot of knowledge in our Network we also want to share two interesting themes by our network members Liv Randi Roland from Norway, Lillehammer and Peter Stammerjohann from Berlin, Germany.
We will use the page “Network Meetings” and upload all information needed.
It will also give you the possibility to spread the page link and invite mentors, caregivers, contact persons etc.

OTHER NEWS
A new Nightingale has begun to sing in the city Trollhättan, Sweden. The University of Vest and the school “Kronan” began in October, with 13 tandems.
Here is some photos from their Kick-Off. A magician performed, children and mentors got bags and t-shirts and everyone was invited to eat pancake and celebrate. Mentors and mentees made their own bracelet and gave each other.

Article about the effects of Covid-19
Many relationships have been disrupted in a special time when children needed them most.  
In this article from New York Pos, you can read about the effect of the pandemic – children who are worried and cut off from their peers and all indirect effects, as for example increase mental health problems of parents and caregivers. The article is also about how programs struggle to address the emotional needs of “children of quarantine.”  But at the same time how the technology has open new opportunities. Read the article

New research
There is an article put on our webpage, by Gilkerson, L., & Pryce, J. (2020) about the concept of “attunement” in mentoring and a framework for relationship called – FAN.
FAN encouraged staff members to concentrate on strengthening mentor relations and also prioritizes reflective practice and theories of interpersonal communication. The next step in this development is to train the mentors on this tool.
Interesting article of how building and reflective practice can be use in mentoring. Maybe something for you to use when we discuss the Supervision.
Please read more here.

What a year! It was almost a miracle we could meet in Malmö, at ourNetwork Meeting and we also got to celebrate our 10th anniversary of our Network. Only one week later everything changed a lot, with the pandemic of Corona.

Now I want to thank you all for your cooperation and hard work in the Nightingale. Together we can be strong!

We wish everyone a very nice and relaxing holiday and a Happy New Year. Looking forward seeing you again in the 2021.

If you have to much free time… listen to Tedore Zeldin who is talking about “the art of conversation”.

Dear Nightingale friend,
hope you are all fine and you could start a new Nightingale year despite the the Covid-19.
Who could imagine we still have to fight this pandemic! Be careful and do what you can, to not be infected or spread it!
For most of us we have or will soon start our new Nightingale year, maybe with fewer tandems. So is the case in our programs in Sweden. We have however been in touched and helped each other ( zoom-meetings) and all of us are hopeful. it is good to help each other so please get help from each other: experience exchange and best practice can be very helpful.

I hope you also have filed in the ANNUAL REPORT AND EVALUATION for last Nightingale year. Could you please send it to me/us the board, we want to compile it and give you the result. I also want to remind you about your own homepage, please change/correct the link to our right Nightingale Network homepage – we no longer use the link: Nightingalementoring.org but nightingalementaring.mau.se

Partner News
our partner Marit, in Bodö, north of Norway, will retire so we would like to give her the biggest thank you for her commitment in the Nattergalen and Nightingale Network.
It has been so nice and a privilege to have her in our network. She has been a board member and has also presented the Nightingale all around, once in Spain, together with me, Carina and Oscar from Girona. She has also published: Nattergalen- møter med muliguheter. Sett, hørt og førstått? If you interested and understand Norwegian you can download it from our webpage.
But most of all we want to thank you for her passion and hard working for all children and mentors at Bodø University and we wish you the best. Big hug! We will miss you Marit!

But we will of course also like to welcome our new partner: Bjørnar Blaalid.

Hi my name is Bjørnar,
I am 34 years and I have a master degree in sociology from University in Bergen. Since 2020 I am working at the University in Nord University, as associated professor. And I also have a scholarship in sociology. I have lived in Bodø 4 years, (come from Bergen, Vestlandet) and I am now the coordinator in Nattergalen Bodø, from this autumn. At Nord University we have 45 tandems. The children come from three schools in Bodø municipality. The students are studying Bachelor in the Barnevern og sosialt arbeid, (social work). I am also very interested in sport and I am running a Taekwondo course and work as a “mentor” for my Taekwondo students. 

We also want to present our new coordinator i Malmö, Sara:

Hallo everyone !
My name is Sara and since the middle of September I am Näktergalen in Malmös new coordinator. I studied social work and have been working a lot with people in different ages, with different need of help and support. It’s so much fun and meaningful working with Näktergalen together with Miriam and Carina. My first weeks have mostly been filled with interviewing the students who wants to become mentors and also interviewing all the children who wants to have a mentor! It’s been great to meet all the curious and happy students and children.

The board
we just want to inform you we have a new board member- Peter Stammerjohann, from Berlin has announced he was to take part in the board and we have welcomed him to do so.

The board have had its latest meeting the 28th of September. We decided that our next Nightingale Network Meeting will be digital as a “zoominar”. We want to use our opportunity to still be able to meet, but not physical. We have ideas regarding this Network meeting but want to discuss it with you. We want your ideas and help! Please let us know what you thing.

The meeting will be at the Nightingale Day the 24th of February. We are still thinking about the content and the audience. We would like to include mentors, contact persons from participating schools etc.
Any ideas, please let us know. Would be nice if all National Nightingale Network could discuss this and send us your thoughts and ideas.

Next board meeting will be the 23rd of November, so we would be grateful if you could send us what you have discussed and your thoughts and ideas. We will discuss your ideas and come back with a draft version.

A chapter about The Nightingale, in a new book, by Liv Roland Randi.
We would like to present chapter 10 in the book: “Values in Child Welfare Service, written by our network member Liv, (unfortunately only in Norwegian) the abstract is in English.
You will find it on our webpage under About, “The Nightingale research and evaluations”.
If you have published or written anything you would like to share. Please let us know.

Have a nice autumn. Best wishes!

Dear Nightingale friends
It has been a very special “Nightingale year”. In February we celebrated the Nightingale Network 10 anniversary in Malmö and had our Network meeting. It was so beneficially and nice meeting you all again. Then some weeks later the Covid-19 pandemic broke out with a lot of sad consequences, death, unemployment etc. In the Nightingale we have to rethink and mentors and mentees had to meet digital – a new word: social distance was born, really the opposite we are working with – our goal is to establish close relations and connecting people. Now thousands of protestors “Black life matter” have been gathered in the street all around the globe after witnessing the death of George Floyd and once again experienced racism, oppression etc. Another virus, a human virus we must fight! For this reason I can recommend an organisation: the “Equal justice initiative
and Bryan Stevensons bestselling book: Just Mercy. You can also listen to him at
Ted talk
I do not know who said this but I think it is right:

We cannot do all the good the world needs.
But the world needs all the good we can do.

PARTNER INFORMATION
Don´t forget to send us:
The Annual Report
The Mentor Evaluation
Also remember to pay the Network membership and for those who haven´t pay the Malmö Network meeting fee. Please do so.
Now something nicer…..Do not forget to save the date 24-25th of February 2022 – next Network meeting in Lillehammer, Norway!

PARTNER NEWS

Stavanger University want to share an interesting article about Memory Jayne Tembo´s PhD thesis. It is about the child welfare sector. Unfortunately it is only in Norwegian.Load down the article here.
But there is however another article, in English: “Parents’ emotional experiences of their contact with the Child Welfare Services: a synthesis of previous research – a research review”. Here you can load down the research article.

Rossinyol Barcelona have celebrated its 10th anniversary. Hipp, hipp hurrah. Best wishes for another 10 years!

Mentor quotiations
We also want to share some quotations from this year:

“My mentee and I are from different social groups but brought together for mutual exchange. Firstly, we are from different age groups where one has more life experience than the other. This way can be used for each of us to learn from each other and grow. Secondly, we are from different cultural background. She is originally from Norway and I am from Africa but we are able to share stories and experiences and still connect.
Lastly, we are from different educational backgrounds as she is still in primary school. We can learn a lot from each other this way.“

“Keep up the good work! I think you have made a great match with me and my mentee. Just keep it up so! I think that this mentorship helped me learn a lot and also grow in so many ways. I think that both sides can only gain from the mentorship.“

Summer reading! ;D
Always remember to look at our webpage: “Research about mentoring”. There you will find different research article about mentoring.
If You have anything you would like to share – please let us know!

Now I which you all the best and a really nice relaxing summer!

Carina

Dear Nightingale friends,
hope all of you are healthy and feeling well.

It is a turbulent time with Covid-19 which also has affected us all, both locally and globally, but at the same time we have seen a lot of people showing both humanity and creating many new ideas.

The power of the people
is stronger
than the people in power

I think all of you have seen a lot of examples of creativity among mentors and mentees, who have not been able to meet physically. Here is one example from the Easter Holiday in Malmö where one mentor hid the Easter egg and let her mentee find it herself.

More examples come from different virtual meetings in Girona with mentors and mentees.

Although a complicated situation our mentors and mentees seem to have adapted very well to the situation. The problem is however for all of us Nightingales, there are still an inequality among our children globally which means some of the mentees do not have access to a computer, telephone etc. And this have of course been a demanding challenge for our mentors.

Mentor and mentees FareWell
All good things must come to an end. 

The Nightingale Mentoring is not a lifetime commitment. It has its own lifecycle or different developmental stages and one of these stages is now getting closer- the separation/termination.

Ending is a normal part of all relationships and if handled well, it can be a “working model” for mentees (and mentors) who have experienced earlier poorly handled endings. In the Nightingale we all have had our special Fare-well-day, a specific event, at a specific date. This year it looks a little different since we have the Corona epidemic. However it is still important to be clear and specific.  As we all know when mentoring relationships end well, they also have longer lasting effects and positive outcomes for all involved.
How will you do/have your Fare-well Party?
We would be glad if you want to share your ideas of how you will arrange your “Fare-well Day”.
In Kristianstad, Sweden, mentors and mentees will meet outside and have their Farewell Party together. In Malmö we will give the mentors-mentees 2 options. To meet physically or have chat, web-activities etc. together, with different activities as help. All mentors and mentees however will meet att the same date the 30 of May (physically or not). And they also have to do one activity together which they must account for.

IMPORTANT
As earlier decided all partners should fill in two documents in the end of their mentor-mentees year and send it back to us. One doc. is for the staff and the other for the mentors.
Carina and Liv ( in the board) will compile it. Send it to us at the latest, end of August.
Annual Report and Mentor Evaluation

Membership in the Nightingale Network
We have decided to change the Network Membership: from 1st of September – end of August next year. (earlier it was April- March )
Unfortunately, our administrator has already sent you the invoice, with the old date. So the new Membership will begin first at the 1 of September 2021- Augusti 2022.
But then you do not have to pay April- September 2021 …ok?

Lars Lagergren´s report Näktergalen mentorsverksamhet- möten för växande, presented at our Network Meeting in Malmö in February, is now possible to load down from our webpage. Unfortunately it is only in Swedish.
Load down from our webpage, ” Nightingale Research and Evaluation”, or click here to down load it.

Take care!

All Nightingale partners, thank you for the positive atmosphere you created these two days, during our meeting in Malmö. the 24-25th of February. We are of us so grateful we had the possibility to meet and share knowledge and experiences.
Also grateful it was not now in March- the corona-virus-epedemic-time.

The Minutes from our meeting is now also uploaded on the webpage with links to different PPT-presentations etc.

We have had some problems with uploading photos on the webpage. We hope however we can present more photos in the next coming newsletter.
But so far these photos might mirror our ceremony and gratitude from the Malmö team.

The Nightingale Day and the celebration of The Nightingale Network 10th anniversary with the famous cake/gateau “NighPingale!

The evaluation from the Malmö Network Meeting and celebration you can down load here.

Covid-19
Regarding the Corona epidemic we have already sent an e-mail about how we have decided to do in Malmö. Instead of meeting we suggest mentors to contact their mentees by phone, chat, Skype etc. as an action to reduce the risk of exposure. But also to try to be calm and have age-appropriate conversation about the mentees concern
On the net there are a lot of things you can load down ( about how to talk to children about the virus ) It might be good to spread them to your mentors as well.
Here you can down load one article. Here you can down load another one.

Dear Nightingale friends!

It is only one week left until we will meet and celebrate The Nightingale 10^th anniversary. We are so happy to have 18 different partner cities participating in our meeting in Malmö. Almost all! 
As mentioned in earlier mail we will be almost 50 participants such as students/mentors, contact persons from schools and communities and coordinators. 

We are also happy to announce the invitation we have got from Malmö municipality to celebrate the Nightingale 10^thanniversary at the Town Hall of Malmö. 
You will find the latest version of the agenda on the webpage Malmö 2020. Please be prepared for the second day the 25^th of February to share your knowledge about your Mentor Training. 
We hope to have two interesting days with lots of experience and knowledge exchange but also fun! 

Other news
Unfortunately we have got sad news from both Näktergalen Kristianstad, Sweden and Nattergalen Stavanger, Norway. At the moment they have a message that their mentoring program cannot or will not continue. We hope to discuss this on our network meeting. How can we help or do something together to stop this? 

Research
There is a new research article is up loaded on the webpage: “If momma ain’t happy with the mentoring relationship, ain’t nobody happy with the mentoring relationship” (under the category: ”Research about mentoring”). But as you can see, there are of course a lot of things to read also on the page: ”Nightingale research and evaluation”. 
On the webpage you will also find a new page ”Films and Interviews” where a link to You Tube is possible to click on and watch different films and interviews. 

Hope you are familiar with our new webpage now and can navigate and find interesting things there. Please feel free to give us feed-back or come up with new ideas.

NETWORK MEETONG 2020
The most important thing coming up now is our next Network meeting in Malmö, the 24-25 th of Februari 2020 where we also will celebrate the NigNightingale Network 10th anniversary and the Nightingale Day.
You will find the draft version of the Agenda on the webpage. If you have any ideas regarding the agande please feel free to come up with new ideas.

Here you can find the draft agenda, click on Malmö 2020
The fee for these two days will be ap. 100 € ( all included except travel and hotel!) ) depending on the quantity registered.
We would like you to register at the latest the 10 of January 2020.

As earlier decided we will continue our discussion and experience exchange and continue to dig deeper into concept of The Nightingale 10 steps.

We are now on the third step: MENTOR TRAINING 
This time Oslo will share their ideas about working with narratives with student-mentors in mentor training.
We will also listen to a researcher from Malmö who have had focus-groups with former mentees and mentors which he will publish in a research article. At Malmö University we have had the idea to make an even bigger research together in The Nightingale Europe and look for funds. This time we will have the possibility to discuss this question.

We are also happy to have one student from Switzerland who will present her bachelor thesis about Nightingale. So we hope some of you can send some mentors to Malmö but also contact-persons. Would be so great to give the opportunity to have experience exchange for them too.

Other news
All NATTERGALEN (Nightingales ) in Norway celebrated its 10th anniversary. Huuurraaah, congratulation and best wishes to all of you Nattergalen! 
In Oslo the celebration took part on the Universal Children´s Right Day the 20th of November, at the Oslo Metropolitan University.

Can we sing a Nightingale song together?
It should be so nice if we could present one partner per day at The Nightingale LinkedIN page. Then we will have the possibility to show how many we are, our local work but also what we do globally together for a sustainable world.
If we start from first of December with one partner presentation we can continue until Christmas the 24th showing a NIGHTINGALE WAVE. But also how we create strong children so we do not have to repair them as adults! And we all know how involvement develop compassion and solidarity – meetings where our democratic and humanistic values can visible. It is a win-win concept.
So please send me some lines about you, your Nightingale, and I will up load it on the Nightingale LinkedIn page.

Podcast
As earlier mentioned, on our former webpage, there is a Podcast about Mentoring ( in English) interesting to listen to. Why not take a pause during the day and go out and put in the earphone and listen and learn.

Research
There is different research articles uploaded on our webpage, both research connected to our Nightingale programmes all around but also two other new reseach-articles which is possible to load down from the page Research about mentoring.

Now the board want to thank you all for your hard working and passionate Nightingale work this year and we wish you Season Greeting and A Happy New Year!
LOOKING FORWARD TO SEE YOU IN MALMÖ 2020.

Dear Nightingale friends,
Time for a new semester, hopefully filled with new energy!

As mentioned in the summer Newsletter, always remembers: Each of us can make a difference but together we can make a change!

New homepage
As you might have seen we have had some problems with our webpage loading up photos etc. and there were also some limitations too. But with a lot of help from our administrator Nina we are now very happy to soon be able to introduce our new webpage. We will have this new address now but hope soon to change it to a Nightingalementoring.com in the future.

Next network meeting & celebration of the Nightingale Network 10th anniversary the 24-25th of February 2020.
As you already know the next Network meeting will be held at Malmö University
Remember to save the date!

We will as soon as possible make a blog with more information.
This time we also hope you can invite school persons, your contact persons too. They are important link and cooperation partners to all of us and we would like them to get together, form groups (let them get in touch with each others, even after the network meeting) and also have the opportunity to have experience exchange.

EU KA3 application
As mention earlier, Barcelona (Servei Solidar) had an idea of applying an EU application KA3 in cooperation with Malmö Nightingale. It was a good idea and it could give us a great opportunity to also involve our former mentors to come together (Youth dialogue) as an event on the next network meeting in Malmö.  

A KA3- application could involve youth/mentors in political action, therefore, the topic should be carried out by the participants of the network/Conference.
The deadline however is October 1^st and it should be presented to the Swedish National Agency before. You should fill in a paper if interested and of course a lot of things should be done before. Unfortunately this is at the same time as we have a hectic program in Malmö (but also you have!) with recruiting students and children and we also have a new team in Malmö. So we have decided to postpone the application this year. However we think it is a great opportunity to let our mentors come together (by EU funds) so that’s why we would like to put the subject /KA3 Erasmus on the agenda of our network meeting in Malmö the 24th – 25th of February. Hopefully Laia, from Servei Solidar in Barcelona could introduce the KA3 application, the benefit and from there we can decide if and how many are interested. My idea is to already decide the content or focus of next Conference:  Student mentors. Then we can invite key-note speakers, researchers and maybe PHD students too in this area.
I think we can even make a better application and maybe also get us the money easier if we plan all the things in advance. 

New partner
We are happy to announce that Berlin Frei Universität will be our partner again.
We want to welcome Peter Stammerjohann, coordinator of Nightingale at the Free University Berlin and Prof. Dr. Petra Wieler, as responsible project manager of Nightingale at the Free University Berlin.

Ghana

Our Nightingale partner in Ghana is working hard but with success! He wants to share his experience so far and wrote to me:

Dear Carina,
November 3rd, 2019 will exactly be two years ago that you set your
foot unto the land of Ghana to sow a seed that should bring some sort
of happiness to school children in Ghana.

This seed is The Nightingale Mentoring Program. In fact the program
kicked off a year after you have left the country Ghana (2018) at
Ashesi University in Ghana. However, the program faced and still
facing financial problems from the beginning to the end of the program
calendar (May). But with determination, the first group of 15 mentors
and mentees respectively has come to an end in this year, 2019. Thank
you for this unique program that you have extended to us in Ghana.

Parents, school children (mentees) and the mentors are saying they
have learnt a lot from the program and have expressed their joy on the program.
Many parents have testified how it has brought a change in their children lives
After all, we were not able to make a big get- to- gather or
farewell, though we met to bring the program to an end successfully.

Attached to this are few pictures on the farewell day.

On this note, we are increasing the number of mentors and mentees
respectively from 15 to 25 in the coming kick-off day in October 2019
at the Ashesi University in Ghana.

Also, we are extending the program to the University of Ghana (
approval pending) may be this or next year .

Thank you once again.
Best , David Kwakye

Dear Nightingale friends,

Another semester is going to its end which means that 1000 mentors and 1000 children in our network have had the possibility to meet, learn and have fun together.
To meet people over different boarders and create good relations is even more important now than ever when populism, alternative facts, xenophobia, islamophobia, antisemitism and intolerance are spreading and people tend to build mental walls between themselves & others.
Diversity is all about all of us, and how we walk through this world together.

Each of us can make a difference but together we can make a change!

For students it is also an opportunity to meet others – different from themselves, as individuals and not as spoke person for particular religious- or ethnic groups. And I am convinced that meetings can change attitudes quicker than information ever can.  We all know when bonds of friendship are sealed prejudices often fall away.

Nightingale-mentoring is also the answer to EU strategy plan 2020
How to address early intervention to avoid that people fall into poverty remain trapped in ever more difficult and problematic socio-economic situations.

Nightingale is exactly that early intervention tool, aiming to prevent problematic socio-economic situations. Cause significant for many Nightingale children is that they lives in the suburb, were it is a higher unemployment, lower income (than average) and not seldom children have fewer adults with high education around them, and some of them live in a risk zone too. So ….I say invest  in these children ….

And I want to use one quotation from Paulo Freire who once said:
“The mentor task is a liberating task. It is not to impress upon or transfer own goal to the mentee. The mentor must instead make sure that mentee get ownership of his or her own history. In my opinion, it is the ethical obligation to support mentees’ perfect autonomy, freedom and opportunities to develop“.

News from our partners

Malmö
first a little reminder, those who had not sent us your Annual Report, please do it so we can compile it! It is a simple document to fill in, which is much easier to fill in. Load it down here .
We wish partners could fill in that document every year when the Nightingale year has ended. Then we will compile it and you can get the result in the autumn, when you start a new year. Ok?

IMPORTANT NEWS
The Network meeting next year will be held in Malmö, Sweden the 24-25th of February 2020, where we also will celebrate the Network 10th anniversary! Come and join us!
As decided in Bodö we will not have any Conference this year, that means we will now try a new concept to meet every second instead.

The board have decided to change the date for the membership in the Nightingale Network
The Nightingale fee will be paid at latest the 1 of September and applies from 1 of September – 31 of August.

Save the date the 24-25th of February 2010

NIGHTINGALE LINZ CELEBRATION

The 18th of June Linz celebrated its 13th anniversary with a gathering and party with Nightingale staff, children and parents, former mentors and children, University staff, sponsors and school staff as well others invited! ( So for example as you can see Sigi, who once worked with Karl when it started). 

 It was a fantastic day with lot of different speech, dancing, singing, eating and laughing- and a warm feeling inside! 

There were also an interview made by Dorf tv-program, before the party started. 
You can see the interview here. 

Austria, Wienna, Graz and Salzburg
We are working in the same way continuously and successfully throughout the year since 2010, without many changes in the concept, “your concept”. Since 2014 Nightingale has he same size (appr. 150 pairs per year, in Vienna, Graz and Salzburg) …  So far more than 1000 children and students benefitted from the programme. This time, in May 2019, around 120 couples are active, 40 started in April, 80 finish in June.  
A good news is, for 2019 we are getting the funds like before and we can go on wokring until 2020 …
:-)Kind regards, Günther

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology
we are happy to present a Master thesis (in English) by a Master student Helena Marten who has written about how coordinator/staff and teachers at participating school in Trondheim work to implement Nightingale in their own organisation.
Please load it down here

The Nightingale/Rossinyols Girona

Our Rossinyols Jordi Feu, and Òscar Prieto-Flores and partners from Girona University are participating in the IMISCOE Annual Conference:
UNDERSTANDING INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY: CONCEPTUAL AND METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES which is held at Malmö University, the 26 – 28 June 2019.
In the evening before the Conference they invited Carina for dinner in Malmö. 😀

Now, best friends, I hope everybody will have a good and relaxing vacation!
Best wishes to all of you!

Dear Nightingale friends

Today it is the 8th of March, and I am thinking about the importance of education to develop our society. To let all children, also girls, have the opportunity of education is not ony an individual thing or an equality question it is a profit for the society. 

Malala has said: a child, a teacher, a book can change the world but I want to add also a mentor can make a difference. Don´t you agree? 

My name is Miriam, and I grew up in a small village in the south of Sweden. I moved to Malmö to study IMER (International Migration and Ethnic Relations) in 2001. During my studies I decided to apply to become a mentor in “Näktergalen” and was happy to be admitted and matched with a child. I learned a lot, and valued the time spent with my mentee highly. I carried the experience close to my heart as I started to work. At first as a youth leader, and eventually in a preschool. About a year ago, when I was invited to a gathering for former mentors in Näktergalen, I was so happy to again be connected to this amazing organization. Shortly after the gathering I found out that a new coordinator was needed. My heart started to beat a little extra and I really hoped I would be the right person for the job. Luckily, some certain persons believed I was, which gave me the opportunity to be a part of the organization once again, and giving me the chance to continuously learn more about the impact of mentoring. I am looking forward to the future, and to meeting you someday under the wings of the Nightingale network! Best wishes, Miriam

Research about The Nightingale mentoring program in Malmö
Nightingale in Malmö are happy to share the news : we have got research money from Malmö University to let one of our associated Professor, senior lecturer at Malmö University do a research study about what mentors and mentees in “Näktergalen Malmö” remember of the relation together. He has already begun the interviews with former children and mentors from the beginning when we started 1997 up to now…we will let you know more when we have more results. But it is very interesting.
As mentioned many times research can strengthened our program so whenever you have time don’t forget to load down and read research articles on our webpage “Research& Development”. The latest article is focusing on the impact on the mentors and if there is any link between mentoring and civic activism.

The Nightingale Day the 24th of February
Since the 24th our Nightingale Day was on a Sunday maybe partners didn´t celebrate the Day.. however it is not to late! And as decided next Nightingale Day will be held in Malmö, the day we will have our network meeting but also celebrate the Networks 10th anniversary!
In Malmö we celebrated this Nightingale Day by letting children and mentors come together on a little fruit-party and at the same time work with the map and try to find out where all Nightingales are cituated and sing all around Europe. They also search for information about each city/countries…and they learned a lot. Actually they wanted to know more about you.
One question, as earlier discussed is to let our tandems become Pen Pals withe each other. What do you say about that? Can one Malmö pair be pan pals with another pair in one of our cities ? Couldn´t it be something?

Greeting from our Nightingale Partners, all around Europe.
I think everyone is aware of the GDPR which means we will from now have difficulties with uploading photos of children and mentors without any agreement.

Annual Report
Thank you for those who have sent us the Annual Report. As soon as we have got all we will compile them and give you the results.

Welcome Petra Johansson, new coordinator in Nightingale Karlstad.

National Network Meeting in Kristianstad, Sweden
The Swedish Nightingales had a national meeting in Kristianstad with experience exchanged about: *interviews, *selection of children and mentors and matching
It was fruitful meeting and we discussed to continue but also deepen our understanding by reading more research in the area.
Malmö has also had two research meetings and discussed different research articles.
For those who requested the compiled results from different evaluations about mentoring. (Carina Sild Lönroth 2013)