Mentoring
The Crawford Fund’s successful and expanding mentoring program delivers real outcomes for the Australians involved, with long-term benefits in developing countries. Please support our mentors in their life-changing endeavours!
Our mentoring program currently places experienced Australians with Australian volunteers and developing country researchers and farming communities including in Laos, Timor-Leste, Cambodia, and Vietnam, to help them develop their technical and organisational skills, and expertise on agricultural projects.
Mentoring provides continuity of support to the Australians and local researchers and farmers, adding significant value to one-off training, with much longer-term benefit through ongoing communication.
A Crawford Fund mentor is someone with great agricultural science knowledge, experience and networks. They contribute to making a difference to agricultural production and food security in the developing world by:
- Building the skills and knowledge of local agricultural scientists, technicians, farmers and government officials to solve current and emerging problems involving pests, diseases, soil fertility, low production or environmental impacts
- Helping place and then guide Australian agricultural volunteers with the Government’s Australian Volunteer Program who remain on the ground to continue the work
- Accessing ‘mates’ – their networks of colleagues in Australia and around the world who act as e-mentors, helping to solve problems and identify solutions that require a wider network of experience
- Providing access to otherwise unavailable technology and equipment across the world.
Our longest running mentor program is in Laos and recent cost-benefit analysis of the program by senior ANU economists found that our investment had returned a benefit of up to 30 times the expenditure in terms of crops protected from disease in the project’s field area. The study also pointed out that there were many other very significant capacity building and institutional benefits that could not be quantified.
Listen to Professor Lester Burgess, our longest-serving mentor, as he talks about the benefits of mentoring with the Crawford Fund, with his 20+ years of experience mentoring across the world.
And watch Kylie Ireland, a former volunteer who has since returned to help train technical staff and farmers.
We have dedicated mentoring programs active in the following countries
Please support us as we provide knowledge and solutions for food security while we build the next generation of Australian agricultural research leaders.
You can read more about our Mentoring Program here.
