mentorship

Bridging STEM gender gap

LeadWith’s leadership team at one of the organization’s events, left to right: co-founders Shira Weinberg and Dalit Heldenberg and managing director Aviv Ziv. (photo by Hadas Eldar Photography)

STEM-related women’s groups are popping up all over the world – and Israel is no exception. In fact, the country is a leader in this area.

Shira Weinberg and Dalit Heldenberg co-started LeadWith, a group for women like them – women interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and seeking camaraderie.

Weinberg, a senior product manager at Microsoft, started out as a software developer while in the Israel Defence Forces’ marine core, and then worked and studied as a software engineer for five years. She’s been with Microsoft for nine years, first as an engineer and then as a product manager.

“As a woman in the industry, I always felt like there aren’t many women,” said Weinberg. “At the beginning, I got used to it and I figured that’s how it is in this area and that’s OK. But, after a few years in the industry, I realized it doesn’t have to be like that.

“That’s one of the reasons I started LeadWith, and I’m also doing some other stuff related to promoting girls and women in the tech industry.”

Raised by a father who worked in the industry in Herzliya, Weinberg was much more familiar with computers than were most of her friends. She went into computer science in high school, which paved the way to her position in the IDF.

Like Weinberg, Heldenberg also started her career as a software engineer. “As a kid, I was always attracted to computers more than the others,” said Heldenberg. “I knew that this is what I wanted to learn, computer science.”

Both young women feel strongly that there is no reason the gender gap should be as big as it is today.

“As you look higher and higher in management positions, there are fewer women,” said Weinberg. “This is something we want to change. And this is one of the main reasons I wanted to lead this change.”

Heldenberg added, “Even when I studied computer science, I’d always see too few women in this field. When I was learning high school physics and when I studied computer science, I was always missing women. We want to see more women wanting to be in management roles.”

Weinberg and Heldenberg understand that, in order to create this change, they need to provide mentorship to other women. They now have bi-monthly get-togethers that include networking and education sessions.

“We found a lot of demand from women for these kinds of events,” said Heldenberg. “At the first event, we weren’t sure how many women would come. We planned for about 50, but ended up with 200 attendees.

“We are currently doing three types of activities. One, the meet-ups, where we usually have 100 to 200 women come.

“We also have the mentoring program, where we hold events also every two months. The mentoring events are smaller in terms of size, but we have our team of mentors all volunteering and joining in for the events. We hold sessions of one-on-one mentoring conversations for around 30 minutes…. For each mentoring event, we have about 25 mentees.”

The third activity is an accelerator program for women entrepreneurs who are at the end stages of launching their start-up. In the first program, they had 13 entrepreneurs. It involved nine full days of sessions over nine weeks, with each day focused on different tools relevant to entrepreneurs.

“At the end, we had a big demo day with important people in the industry,” said Heldenberg.

With more than 1,600 people now involved with LeadWith, it is clear that they are filling a previous void and that their approach is working.

“At the events, we put a lot of focus on networking,” said Weinberg. “We usually have a short networking session before the main session begins. We make sure every woman will talk with one or two women she hasn’t met before … that really helps them know more women in the industry and creates more conversations.

“Always after these kinds of events, you hear good stories about things that happen because of the networking and the new connections. Of course, you get to know other women in the industry.

“Also, at the time when a woman wants to change roles, she can draw upon the extensive connections she has gained at our events. You can never know what will come out of this kind of connection. We always hear great stories.”

LeadWith’s focus is both on connecting women who are already in the industry, as well as those who studied computer science or technology but, for one reason or another, did not go on to work in the field. The organization hopes to draw these latter women back into the field.

“A month ago, we did a hackathon in collaboration with another organization, called Cyber Girls,” which brings computer science to those around 16 and 17-years old, said Weinberg. “They brought the girls and we brought the women, and we divided into teams that included both women from the industry and the girls. It was a few hours. There were multiple teams. Each team had a big mission and a lot of tasks along the way – quizzes and such – to figure out solutions that involve writing code.

“What was amazing was that each team in this hackathon was … 10 teenaged girls and a woman from our community, and the quizzes they had to do were really tough. The young girls were very ambitious, they couldn’t get the answers from us. It was really good to see that. They are very smart.”

LeadWith is a nonprofit organization and volunteers are an integral part in whatever they do, said Heldenberg. “We get some help in posting events in certain offices, [donations of] snacks and drinks for events, those kinds of things, from Microsoft, Google and Wix.”

Both Heldenberg and Weinberg think there are multiple reasons for the lack of women in STEM fields, from how children are raised, the educational system and society as a whole. They also are concerned that, if they spread themselves too thin, they will achieve less. As such, they have opted to focus, for now, on industry women in their 20s to 40s. For more information, visit leadwith.org.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Youth mentorship program

Kathleen Muir, youth services coordinator at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. (photo from Kathleen Muir)

Chill Chat, a peer mentorship program that began a few years ago but seemed to disappear, has been reignited in Vancouver as a hub for youth programs in the community.

The program’s revitalization can partly be attributed to the new Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver youth services coordinator, Kathleen Muir, who has returned to her hometown of Vancouver after getting a degree in social work at the University of Calgary. She brings with her a wide rage of experience, including working in the areas of homelessness and addiction, and suicide prevention and intervention, as well as with disabilities organizations in Calgary and impoverished school districts in Barbados.

Chill Chat is “a peer-to-peer mentorship program” for Jewish youth aged 12 to 22, explained Muir in an interview with the Independent, “but it’s customized to needs and interests, so it really means that anyone who is interested, there is a place for them.”

She said, “You can go into it if you have a disability or if you don’t have a disability, you can go into it if you have any mental health concerns or if you don’t.”

Chill Chat is a three-tiered system, where the mentees are mainly in grades 8 and 9, but with some in grades 7 and 10, and the mentors are in Grade 10 and up.

“You have the grades 11 and 12 that are both going to give support and receive support from Hillel and [the Jewish Students Association at the University of British Columbia],” she said. “What’s really cool about that and something that I love is that it really makes it clear that you can receive help and also be able to give help and, just because you are receiving help doesn’t mean you don’t have the ability or expertise to give out help, too.”

About the role of Chill Chat in the Vancouver Jewish community, Muir said, “We are creating this huge network fabric for support that’s going to be across the board and, because Chill Chat is based on informal support of calling the person or meeting up with them, rather than [come,] sit down, workshop, go home. You have these groups of people who are able to call each other whatever time they need, who are able to provide support that a service that is 9-5 can’t provide.”

When Muir joined the JCC staff, Chill Chat was focusing more on supporting kids with disabilities, but she wanted to broaden that scope because, she said, “we’ve all been there and needed some kind of advice.”

And the program is now better supported itself. “We have so many different stakeholders who know about the program, who know how it’s run and who are highly invested in it, so it doesn’t just fall on to me,” said Muir.

Chill Chat has partnerships with a variety of organizations, such as the CIJA, CJPAC, JCC Maccabi, Festival HaRikud, the Duke of Edinburgh Award and Queerious. This allows the program to “really meet the needs that the participants want,” said Muir.

“If you have a kid that is already interested in athletics, then pairing up with a mentor and both of them working towards JCC Maccabi – they are working towards a common goals together,” she said by way of example.

The commitment for participants is that they communicate once a week in some way, in any form, “from Snapchat to a telegram,” and, once a month, mentors and mentees have to meet up face-to-face.

The meet-ups can be facilitated by the JCC, which hosts a Chill Chat Chill each month, where, said Muir, “we get together, we watch a movie, have a pizza party, go ice skating. Once a month we also have a Chill Chat Ed and we bring in educators to talk about what a mentoring relationship is like and how to support each other. We have an amazing partnership coming in November with CIJA and CJPAC, who are going to bring in people in the political world to do a world café and speak one-on-one with out mentors and mentees”

To take part in Chill Chat, teens and young adults can email Muir at [email protected], call her at 604-257-5111, ext. 308, or complete the form at thecalloutjcc.com/#!get-connected/c2022. There is a meet-and-greet picnic on Sept. 25, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., in the JCC Teen Lounge.

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Helping those at risk

Shai Lazer, chief executive officer of Youth Futures, an organization that aids Israel’s at-risk youth. (photo from Shai Lazer)

Earlier this year, Shai Lazer, chief executive officer of Youth Futures – a program supported by the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign, among others – visited Vancouver.

A leader in the Israeli youth-outreach movement, Lazer describes himself modestly.

“I am 36 years old, married with three kids, living in Modiin,” he told the Independent. “My hobbies are reading, traveling around the country and sports. My military service was very meaningful, as was studying in university at the Mandel Institute.”

Lazer’s modesty is deceiving, as he presides over a national organization with outposts in 36 Israeli communities.

Youth Futures endeavors to help vulnerable children, their families and their communities cope with the painful and/or challenging aspects of their daily lives. Started in 2006, Youth Futures works with all demographics of Israeli society, including every manner of Jew, Arab, Bedouin and Druze. Working with more than 12,000 people throughout Israel, Youth Futures designates around 300 professional “mentors” to facilitate the majority of the organization’s outreach. Ultimately, Youth Futures’ mission is “to give every at-risk child in Israel’s geographic and social peripheries the confidence, opportunities and skills to realize their inherent potential.”

photo - Shai Lazer, right, with Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver chief executive officer Ezra Shanken — Shai Lazer, right, with Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver chief executive officer Ezra Shanken. *(photo from JFGV)*

But, as Lazer explained, the organization is continually expanding. On his mid-March visit to Vancouver, he spoke with his Canadian counterparts about the direction in which Youth Futures and similar organizations are heading.

“I was received incredibly well,” said Lazer. “I felt there was a real and honest dialogue about what’s currently happening in the field, future endeavors, and meaningful conversation in private and in groups. All in all, the main feeling was that of partnerships.”

Lazer is no stranger to partnerships. Under his direction, Youth Futures’ Kiryat Shmona branch currently benefits from Vancouver (22%), the Jewish Agency (35%), the Ministry of Education (38%) and the local municipality (5%) in partnerships and investment. The organization has grown dramatically since Lazer became director of the program in 2008, and even more since he became CEO. One of his achievements has been securing more government financial backing.

Lazer became a part of Youth Futures when he was in university.

“The program was just started while I was in the second year of my studies in Mandel Institute,” he said. “I was approached to join the staff. I remember thinking that it was an interesting educational concept, and was drawn to the newness – the opportunity to create something new and redefining our approach to helping at-risk children.”

Youth Futures uniquely uses the model of having a mentor reach out to the youth and families in their national outposts. Lazer believes that the idea of the mentor is the key to the success of the organization.

“I define a professional mentor by their ability to learn,” he said. “To be able to stop, have some personal reflection and increase their learning curve – that and passion. Youth Futures chooses this model because it’s the only thing that works.”

Youth Futures has the statistics to show its effectiveness. For example, 78% of the youth showed increased self-confidence and ability to cope and 74% showed improved social skills; its alumni have a negligible school drop-out rate and 84% of them have shown the higher motivation required to qualify for more elite army units or to perform civil service. Lazer maintains that such positive numbers are directly because of Youth Futures’ role in these children’s lives.

“I think it’s because someone believed in them,” he said. “When someone believes in you, your confidence grows and you want to become part of the community. It gives you a sense of responsibility over the world you live in.”

Lazer is adamant that his organization’s model could be used in other countries to help at-risk children and the families and societies that surround them. And Youth Futures is actively looking to expand into North America.

Building on his organization’s momentum, and the foundation of 10 years of solid community outreach, Lazer believes the next decade for Youth Futures will be busy and successful.

“Ten years from now, Youth Futures is still here, constantly expanding to more communities and to new populations – early childhood and high school,” he predicted. “We’re currently in the midst of planning the celebrations of 10 years of Youth Futures and launching the next decade. We’re working on a ‘journey book,’ which will include interviews and showcase all different localities, a film, a big national event to celebrate with our participants and their families, a professional seminar, a reception to be held at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in November, and many more. We’re also launching two new initiatives, expanding into intervention with early childhood parents, as well as starting an organization to help our alumni. It’s an exciting time and we’re looking forward to many new things coming our way.”

Jonathan Dick is a freelance writer living in Toronto. His writing has appeared in the Canadian Jewish News, and various other publications in Canada and the United States.