We would love to invite y’all to participate in the Q Center’s Queer Mentorship and Peer Program. Our cycle for the 2024-2025 academic year has begun, and we would really value your participation in our program!
Applications are due on Monday November 18th by 11:59pm!
Follow the link to the application here. At this time, we only have space for 100 applicants. Partners will be assigned by December 13th. If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know at qmppuw@gmail.com.
Note
We are not accepting participants under 18 at this time due to capacity limitations.
If you are an LGBTQ+ person, under the age of 18, looking for resources on LGBTQ-specific mentorship, consider Seattle’s LGBTQ+ Center’s youth specific mentoring program. Their peer mentorship program, specifically, offers a peer mentorship model for queer and trans BIPOC youth under 18. All students 18 and under are also encouraged to explore opportunities for connection and community through the Lambert House program.
What is QMPP?
QMPP is an evolving mentorship and peer program that actively seeks to queer the idea of mentorship. Within QMPP, we aim to address the perception of power differences within traditional mentorship programs and create an affirming space for shared learning and respect. All mentorship and peer groups directly inform the shape and structure of their group. This program upholds the statement, “conversations over contracts.”
The Queer Mentoring and Peer Program provides a safe, affirming, and exciting environment in which a mentee’s sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression is supported and celebrated by an educated and experienced mentor.
Through this program, you can expect to:
- Get matched one-on-one with someone based on your shared identities and interests
- Meet with your mentor/mentee twice a month and explore the joys, challenges, concerns, and questions about coming out, exploring their queer identity, and much more
- Attend campus and community events, and help to build your queer community
Within QMPP, we actively seek to queer how we understand mentorship. In such an initiative, we intentionally aim to expand how we understand our roles within a mentorship program. See below for how past participants have defined the available roles within QMPP for themselves.
The Roles
Mentor
- “Someone with expertise or experience in a certain area that is willing to provide guidance on a subject.”
- “Somebody who is more experienced within the community, with the community, who knows how to navigate, and explains how to navigate.”
- “Someone who holds the space for you.”
Mentee
- “Someone who wants to learn about themselves and the world around them in a comfortable and safe space.”
- “Someone who may look up to me, someone for whom I can create the space to learn and grow unabashedly and without shame. Someone who I can equally learn from though it may not be their responsibility to teach me.”
- “Someone looking for a space where they can be vulnerable, learn more about themself and others, and look for opportunities to grow.”
Peer
- “Someone to fail and succeed with.”
- “A relationship built on current commonality, someone(s) who may be experiencing things similar to me, someone who I can collaboratively create spaces with for the both of us to grow and learn with compassion.”
- “Someone with a mutual goal with something to contribute towards that goal in collaboration with others.”
Questions?
Contact us at qmppuw@gmail.com, and use the subject line “QMPP.”