How the Shona Project is Empowering Ireland’s Girls Through Mentorship
with Tammy Darcy,
Founder of The Shona Project
with Tammy Darcy,
Founder of The Shona Project
The Shona Project is an Irish charity that exists to help teenage girls feel safe, strong, and seen, educating, empowering, and inspiring today’s girls to become tomorrow’s strong, confident, and curious young women. Through school workshops, the Shine Festival, ambassador programmes, and online resources, Shona has reached thousands of girls. Since launching its mentorship programme in 2023, it has grown into one of its most important offerings, pairing girls aged 15-18 with women from a wide range of industries.
The Shona Project already reached thousands of Irish girls through school workshops, events, and community programmes — but reach isn’t the same as staying power. Once a workshop ended, there was no structured way for the support to continue. Girls were already seeking out mentors informally, through teachers and family, but access wasn’t equal or consistent.
As founder Tammy Darcy put it when the mentorship programme first launched:
“We realised there’s great power in providing young girls in Ireland with access to incredible female role models through a mentorship programme.”
– Tammy Darcy, Founder & CEO, The Shona Project
That founding insight became the mission Lisa Browne, the programme’s manager, now runs day to day: giving every girl a trusted woman outside school and home who can “listen without judgment and advise without telling them what to do.”
Since that first cohort, growth has been steady and organic:
Engagement has scaled with it.
In the 2025–26 school year alone, the platform recorded 6,093 interactions, 3,923 messages, and 527 meetings — with Mentorloop noting that off-platform activity likely pushes real engagement even higher.
The programme achieved a 99% one-to-one matching rate, well above Mentorloop’s recommended minimum, and a mentoring quality score of 4.69 out of 5 — also exceeding recommended benchmarks.
Crucially, growth hasn’t come at the cost of connection: 268 kudos and achievement badges were exchanged over the year, mentors recognizing their mentees’ confidence and progress in real time.
At the end-of-year celebration, mentees stood up one by one to talk about their mentors — not about advice given, but about consistency. As Lisa describes it, what mattered most wasn’t the content of the conversations, but having “somebody constantly, consistently in their corner” who wasn’t a parent or teacher.
The data backs up what the room felt: in the 2025–26 impact survey;
Many mentor–mentee pairs have chosen to keep meeting after their formal year ends — proof, Lisa says, that:
"we hadn't simply created a programme where women met teenage girls once a month, but relationships where girls felt heard, encouraged and supported."
Working with mentees aged 15–18 means safeguarding isn’t optional — it’s foundational. Every Shona mentor completes Tusla Children First training and is Garda vetted, and Mentorloop gives the programme a secure, structured space to communicate without ever handing over a young person’s personal contact details.
Beyond safeguarding, a few features changed how the programme felt to run:
“It has really been brilliant. It gives us confidence, and it’s a great way to make sure we’re protecting both the mentor and the mentee at the same time.”
For a small charity like Shona, Mentorloop provided the foundation to scale quickly and safely.
⏱️ All programme elements in one place meant no wasted admin time.
🔒 Built-in safeguarding gave the team peace of mind.
🌍 Online access ensured girls in rural communities could participate equally.
❤️ Confidence to scale — doubling numbers in Year 2 without adding complexity.
The Shona Project’s focus for the next year or two isn’t a bigger number — it’s a stronger community around the number already there. That means deepening the mentor network so mentors learn from each other, bringing on more partner organisations (not just as funders, but as a source of mentors from different industries), and using Mentorloop’s data throughout the year rather than only at its end.
As Lisa puts it: “We never want a mentee to feel like she’s number 42 in a growing programme.” Success, for Shona, means every one of those 56 relationships still feels personally chosen.
The Shona Project
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We realised pretty soon that the impact of this programme was going to be pretty substantial. With Mentorloop, everything is in the one place.
– Tammy Darcy, The Shona Project
What Role Does Equity and Equality Play in Your Mentoring Program?
The right mentoring program should level the playing field to empower entire cohorts of people: workplaces, member associations, social groups and educational institutions. Equality should be a cherished value so that every individual can thrive—whoever they are, whatever their background, however they worship or whomever they love. But we can’t arrive at equality without it’s often forgotten partner, equity.
What does a Mentoring Program Coordinator do?
Being a Mentoring Program Coordinator is an incredibly rewarding experience that positively impacts the lives of many. And while mentoring programs don’t fully run themselves (even though Mentorloop can do a great deal of the heavy lifting!), they do require a point of contact that can steer the program in the right direction for the organisation that is running one.
Building Quality Feedback Into Mentoring Relationships
This is Part 8 of our 10-part series on the 10 Key Qualities and Habits of a Highly Effective Mentor.
In this post, we’ll look at how mentors can successfully build quality feedback into their mentoring. Quality feedback is priceless because it clarifies expectations, helps people learn from their mistakes, and builds confidence. It also allows mentees to more effectively take what their mentors say and turn it into action.
