Dr. Torie Weiston-Sertan is late to the meeting because of a scheduling conflict — something that happens regularly because of the many different hats she wears. For Weiston-Sertan, 36, a full-time educator and founder of the Youth Action Mentoring Network (YMAN), the feeling comes from knowing that she could do so much more if she had the funding to hire additional support staff to help run her program.

In its 12 years, the Youth Mentoring Action Network has centered much of its focus on helping youth deal with various life lessons. Weiston-Sertan makes it known that she is dedicated to meeting the needs of underserved black, brown and queer youth populations. The program focuses on engaging and collaborating directly with youth and giving them a voice in helping to solve the problems they face — whether related to academics or identity development.

The program, inspired by Weiston-Sertan’s dissertation and book, Critical Mentoring: A Practical Guide, hopes to redefine practice around how people in the field think and do mentoring work.

Without getting the necessary financial support for YMAN, Weiston-Sertan will not be able to provide the emotional and academic mentoring that so many Inland Empire students need. “As a black queer woman I have had to learn how to establish funding streams that do not depend on funders,” she said. “While I was versed in funding streams before, I have really had to make magic happen in order to serve my participants.”

Complicated her financial challenges, Weiston-Sertan said is that most mainstream or large, long-established philanthropic organization are run by men, who, based on her experience, rarely understand the needs of programs that focus on gender, race and sexuality.

Read the full article about mentoring queer females by Jonathan Higgins at The 74.