MLOV Mentors
As we settle into 2026, we look back at the growth and stories of 2025 in our MLOV Youth Mentorship Community. Last year we continued to expand our mentorship program offerings, reaching more students from different communities, ages, backgrounds and diverse needs, dreams and goals.
Our mentees, mentors and their respective families, whether they be new to our community or not, have increasingly participated in other programs, events and community organizing opportunities beyond our mentorship program. This expanded engagement is rooted in our mission to empower both youth participants and their families to help build power within immigrant communities across DC. Examples of this broader engagement have provided key markers and ideas for our mentorship program team as we build upon and find new ways to engage our youth, their families, mentors and volunteers in 2026.
Dario, a 7th grade student, joined our mentorship program in the summer and was matched with our Manager of Student Success, Mikel. Through weekly meetings, and participation in our MLOV Youth Summer Program, Dario was able to receive one on one mentorship as well as meet and spend time with other Latino youth as they supported each other in building social emotional skills through exploring their own and DC’s immigrant stories and traditions. Our relationship with Dario has continued beyond the end of his mentorship program, especially with continued conversation with his mother. Through mutual aid food deliveries during the worst of DC’s federal occupation, and continued guidance from Mikel and our colleague, Karen, a Middle School counselor at Columbia Heights Education Campus (CHEC), around Dario’s schooling options as he approaches High School, Dario and his mother have continued to receive support from MLOV’s teams as well as become a part of our youth and wider communities.
Madelin, a senior at CHEC also joined our mentorship program but quickly, along with her younger sister, joined various youth programs. Madelin participated in our first-ever Futuro U College Prep Camp and is now a member of our Escalera 12th grade cohort. As she takes steps to continue her education after graduating from HS so she can continue her career goals of becoming a pediatric nurse! In our workshops, Madelin is a leader amongst her peers, helping recruit other students, sharing internship opportunities and advice she’s received from her counselors at school, and helping others with their activities and writing. For these reasons and her broader engagement with the community, we were proud to have received Madelin’s application to be a part of MLOV’s new Youth Advisory Council which was formed in November. Madelin along with her classmate Angie from the Escalera 12 cohort have represented our upperclassmen community of students excellently so far, helping mentor some of the younger students in the group themselves as they grow and help others become leaders. We cannot wait to continue to see Madelin’s growth, community engagement, and hear back with positive news from her college and scholarship applications!
Moriah, another one of our mentees who grew up in Addis Ababa but is from Eritrea originally, received mentorship in her application and enrollment processes as she starts university in the US. Now a student at UDC, Moriah and her father also worked with MLOV’s Advocacy team in the summer as Community Outreach workers, helping distribute flyers, Know Your Rights cards, and education around Immigrant and Workers rights to the Eritrean community here in DC. Besides providing a paid work opportunity for a mentee and her family, MLOV also benefitted greatly from Moriah as well as her mentor’s engagement, helping MLOV reach more of DC’s Eritrean, Habesha and East African immigrant communities. We wish Moriah the best as she continues her studies and are excited to continue counting her a part of our community!
Bessy, who has now started her second semester at Catholic University of America (CUA) and has been a part of MLOV Mentors and other youth programs for several years now makes up an integral part of several of our youth communities. Her mentor, Angelica, now works as a Full-Time Instructor and Student Success Coach at MLOV. Alongside Angelica, Bessy served as a volunteer classroom assistant during our summer program last year after graduating from high school and before she started at CUA. Now she continues to receive support from Angelica as her mentee, but also as a part of our new Avanzando Through College program supported by Unidos US. Through this cohort program which includes 1st and 2nd year college students, many of whom are MLOV alumni like Bessy, along with her continued relationship with Angelica and the MLOV Youth Programs Team, we hope to continue our engagement and community building with our youth as they continue onto post-secondary.
This engagement with youth and families through and beyond our mentorship program highlights the positive outcomes that can be attained through individual, group and community wide programming and engagement. This multi-generational and faceted approach to youth empowerment takes time, as does the building of relationships of trust that are necessary to respectfully and more successfully engage youth and their families in our community.
To support this ongoing work to improve, deepen and expand our mentorship and youth programs at large, MLOV has worked with community partners like DC Tutoring and Mentoring Initiative (DCTMI) to recruit mentors and volunteers as well as received Technical Assistance support from a program offered through Mentor MD|DC. The guides and policies designed by our Student Success team with support from an experienced professional in the mentorship and youth advocacy fields will now help train new staff and mentors, as well as provide standardized recruitment and feedback templates to support our work.
Although it can take time, at MLOV we believe it is through this effort, patience, relationship and trust that we can grow as a community and in turn all benefit from the ideas, creativity, passion and leadership of our mentees and their networks.
