"All Mentors Meeting" was held

As part of the RAS - JICA Project "Strengthening and further establishment of mentoring services for small and medium-sized enterprises in the countries of the Western Balkans", the "All Mentors Meeting" was held.

Belgrade, December 8, 2022 - After a two-year break, the All Mentors Meeting - an annual meeting of mentors - was held in Belgrade. Mentors are representatives of accredited regional development agencies certified as part of the process of establishing a standardized mentoring service in Serbia, which the Development Agency of Serbia (RAS) has been implementing since 2006 in cooperation with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). medium-sized enterprises were both theoretically and practically trained with the support of tools and knowledge of experts from Japan.

At the held meeting, the mentors were presented with the results so far and plans for the next year. On behalf of JICA, this was done by Mr. Kato, the permanent JICA coordinator, and Mrs. Oikawa, the leader of the JICA expert team, while Mrs. Ana Žegarac, the Project Manager on behalf of RAS, said that the key activities in the next phase of the Project will be related to improving the quality of the service, improving the selection criteria, as well as developing procedures for the evaluation and certification of mentors and trainers.

During the event, the participants had the opportunity to get acquainted with training improvements for new mentors implemented by members of the Working Group composed of JICA and RAS team as well as 15 trainers for mentors and "On the job" trainers.

Improvements within all seven training modules were presented by experienced trainers, Ljubica Mesaroš ("Communication Skills"), Dragana Belenzada ("Human Resource Management"), Milica Čukarić ("Financial Management and Business Plan"), Saša Dedeić ("Production management and KAIZEN"), Sonja Jevremović ("Marketing and sales"), Nataša Jovanović ("Mentoring for start-ups") and Ljiljana Marković ("Mentoring for mature companies").

The service of standardized mentoring according to the previously established JICA-RAS methodology is carried out in Serbia by about 60 active mentors, of which 20 are involved in the activities carried out in the countries of the region (in Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia) where training of new mentors and "Training on the job" are held.