The purpose of this project is intended to enhance social work professionals' knowledge and awareness of the significance of mentoring in the development of a child's aspiration for both personal and academic growth. The writer accomplished this by utilizing first-hand experience of his relationships and successes with various mentors throughout his life and is partially presented in narrative form. This project is organized in sequential order and includes a brief background of the writer's native country. The writer was born and raised on the island of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines until the age of twelve after which he immigrated to the United States, reluctantly; leaving everything that he had come to know about his world behind him.

The writer experienced a range of emotional and cultural disruptions that created unique barriers to his personal and academic achievements. Despite living in what appeared to have sometimes been an intact two-parent home, the writer's father was a puritan and a militant parent who, in ignorance, discouraged individualization. The writer struggled to develop a healthy sense of self with little to no room for the cultivation of autonomous expression. Ultimately, the writer found solace in forging relationships with individuals outside his family. These individuals later became known to the writer as mentors.