With three additional staff members, a host of fresh faces on our board and a brand new office space, it’s pretty clear that LifeXchange has grown over the past year! And that’s not forgetting the 30 mentors and 34 mentees that have joined our ranks. It’s therefore safe to claim that 2015 has been a year of great growth and unexpected joyful surprises for us. When people say, ‘you never know what the future will bring’, this must be what they’re talking about!

Seeing the fruits of all these mentoring efforts has also been a rich and rewarding experience. With forty-six mentoring relationships in the LifeXchange process altogether at the moment, and at least three more to start before the end of the year, it’s hard not to feel excited over the budding mentoring movement! We saw youths who were sitting around, wasting their days on street corners with no hope for more in life, now attending college or working full-time and persevering with dreams of what else they can live for. We saw dissatisfied, unproductive employees’ open their eyes to the people and teams around them and now putting effort in even the smallest ways in their workplaces.

This is just a taste of what LifeXchange’s updated vision is all about; seeing healthy, strong and resilient people living life to the full in Africa. From CEOs, to youth and children, from top sportsmen to the homeless on the streets, LifeXchange wants to see a whole nation move into a life of abundance.

In pursuit of this aim, our mission is to hit every sector of life and society with mentoring. The year 2015 was when we broadened our focus from youth-at-risk and community development to include corporate mentoring projects in both the agriculture and business arenas. And more projects are lining up! We are excited for opportunities in the fields of sports, primary schools, students and SMME mentoring. With prospects like these, we are confident that the mentoring movement in Africa is set to rise!

So what will 2016 bring? At LifeXchange we never settle for less, thus we are expecting more. More possibility, more potential realised, more eyes opened and more living in abundance. Jump on this rollercoaster ride and join the movement! We guarantee you will be changed.

by Tammy Mewes