Gerry Laybourne joins other pariticipant of the 2009 Mentoring Walk in Uganda

This year on November 21, Vital Voices helped to organize Mentor’s Walks in 8 countries.

Can you imagine what this means to me? Mentor’s Walk started in NYC when I said to colleague, Andi Bernstein: “Hey, here’s an easy to do idea….let’s gather women (just a few hundred) in Central Park and get all our high placed women friends ( you know, Meryl Streep, Diane Von Furstenberg, Heidi Miller..etc) mentor younger women. Maybe we can get media coverage to show that women do help women.” Well, there was no “easy” in the effort, but we did do a dozen or so walks in cities all over the US and did get media coverage. It was fantastic to be a part of.

It sprang from my practice of walking with young women if they wanted advice…my trusty assistant Ed (sigh, I miss him) told anyone who wanted my mentoring that I didn’t need another meal or to interrupt my day, but I needed exercise….

When I began meeting with the 50 women selected by the FORTUNE/US State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership who come every year to NY, I told about our Mentors Walks. In 2007 a walk was held in Nepal..and now this year 8 are being held.

So here I am on November 21 in Uganda.

Read the full post at Gerry Laybourne’s blog