Update as of May 7, 2021: The mentorship program is now called the Piedmont Affinity and Identity Mentor Program. It has expanded to all three Piedmont elementary schools and serves over sixty elementary students from Asian, Black, and Latinx backgrounds.

PHS and MHS’s Black Student Union (BSU) and Advocacy for Asian Americans (AAA) clubs have created a new mentorship program to help Havens Elementary School students of color better understand their cultural identities. The program aims to provide support and make the students feel comfortable, recognized, and cared for.

The program was formed after Havens paraeducator Jean Takazawa spoke with Havens principal Anne Dolid and AAA proposing the idea of a program to incorporate a mix of high schoolers with different ethnic backgrounds. This proposal was accepted and then the program took off from there, sophomore Sage Mosley said.

Takazawa then reached out to BSU advisor Ina Bendich and the two clubs decided that they should collaborate and do the program together, Mosley said. They decided to select different leaders from their clubs to be the mentors for the Haven’s students. The project was officially announced on Friday, Aug. 28 via social media. “AAA recognized that not only Asian students from the elementary schools needed the mentorship,” MHS senior and BSU leader Harmonee Ross said. “They wanted equal representation of all students of color.”

Mosley said that Takazawa and Bendich chose seniors and AAA co-presidents Anthony Wong and Jenna Kim, as well as senior Anjuli Turner, Ross, and herself from BSU.

The high schoolers are all committed to building connections with younger kids of color and encouraging them to talk about race, Ross said.

“We create mentoring sessions involving conversations around race and identity between the high school mentors and elementary students,” Mosley said.

The mentors have been meeting with Havens kids of all grades at lunch or after school for two weeks, either weekly or bi weekly.

“We’re in these first initial steps of just creating a connection because identity [development] can’t really happen [without] a connection with the kids,” Kim said.

Each group has made progress through different activities such as talking about food in order to expose the younger students to more of their own culture Mosley said. Another important activity is talking about students’ families and what their families mean to them, Mosley said.

So far, the results have been positive Kim, said. They are intent on building relationships in order to have deeper conversation about race and identity.

This program gives the younger students the opportunity for guidance and mentorship and to help them find their cultural and racial identity. The program is starting small but it is motivated to expand into bigger affinity groups and then possibly expanding into gender or people that they see a need for and also the expansion of the program into Piedmont Middle School, Beach Elementary School, and Wildwood Elementary School, Mosley said.

Ross said the program also wants the students of different ethnicities to have a voice and feel comfortable in their environment, and if that means talking about simple topics such as animals, then that is truly meaningful.

“The goal is, yes, we want to talk about race, we want to talk about culture, but if talking about animals is a way that these beautiful students feel acknowledged and hear, then we’re going to talk about animals,” Ross said.

Students interested in becoming mentors can contact Takazawa at jtakazawa@piedmont.k12.ca.us, or Bendich at ibendich@piedmont.k12.ca.us. Students can also DM @piedmontaaa on Instagram or reach out to BSU through Bendich.