The Prime Mentors of Canada (PMC) is a community-based charitable organization which operates a program designed to use the wealth of experience, talents and skills of adult members of the community particularly retirees, in order to enhance the development of the creative abilities of children who are not enrolled in any gifted program within the school system.

The PMC enrichment program is in school and project-oriented.  It is administered in cooperation with the principal and teachers of each of the participating schools. Each student protégé is paired with an adult mentor who shares similar interests and/or strengths so that together they can design, develop and complete a project. The pair then presents the finished work to the protégé's class to extend the benefits of the mentoring experience to non-participating students in the school.

This intergenerational pairing of mentor and protégé affords the adult and the child the opportunity to explore, fantasize, collaborate and enjoy an activity that is creative and enriching for both.  It promotes mutually beneficial interactions.  Each acts as a catalyst for the continuing development of the other.  The best way to mobilize one's own creative potential is to help others mobilize theirs.  Mentoring facilitates this process.

Some creative children are "high-risk" youngsters with a much higher probability of failure if the school system fails to challenge their talents and their energies.  Their strong independent and nonconformity, as well as their insatiable curiosity, rich imagination, playfulness and adventurous inclinations may be regarded as liabilities rather than assets in a classroom of nor than twenty children vying for a teacher's attention.  Not surprisingly, they may feel unwelcome by teachers who may have neither the time nor the inclination to attend to their needs.  Teachers with large classes to manage tend to prefer and consequently are likely to pay more attention to those children in the class that are more manageable, being more conforming, obedient, polite and passive.

The education intent of the PMC program is to reach these children with creative potential who are at risk of neglect in the traditional classroom.  They are probably the most often misunderstood children in the schools.  Often achieving much less then their potential, these children may feel out of place in an environmental witch disproportionately values, develops and rewards verbal and mathematical abilities.  The emphasis in the classroom is strong on logical, systematic, analytical, liner and convergent thinking, usually at the expense of students who are strong in nonverbal abilities. Their strength lies in intuitive, imaginative and divergent thinking. These potentials of the human personality are equally important to vita and fully functioning society. They are critical to the complex problem-solving skills that will be required if, as a society, we are to survive in a rapidly changing, unpredictable world.  PMC tries to have the teachers identity those who creative potential is at risk of been lost.  Subsequently, though this particular intergenerational mentoring model, PMC intervenes directly to harness and direct the child's creative energy into positive, rather than negative and disruptive expression.

Special acceptance and encouragement from a significant adult who recognizes and values the child's creativity may override some of the negative and irreparable effects of peer pressure on creative development.  The adult mentor can provide a protected relationship in witch learning and experimentation can occur, potential skills can be developed, and in which results can be measured in terms of competencies gained rather than curricular territories covered.  They can also keep the situation open enough for originality to flourish and persist as well as guard the individual against the reaction from peers and superiors long enough to test and modify ideas. The self-esteem and confidence enchanted though the mentor's appreciative attention to the protégé's ideas and realistic appraisal of progress together contribute the healthy creative development.

Intergenerational mentoring also provides the young with new role models.  Working in a school setting with positive, responsible, interested, multi-talented and exemplary mentors, witch is what the acronym P.R.I.M.E. stands for, is bound to make some significant impact on the developing value system and world perspective of children who are still impressionable and whose set of values and beliefs are not yet completely formed.

The mentor acts as a guide, listens to and encourages the child's creative imagination, explores the child's interests and abilities, assists the child in solving whatever problems may arise in putting into concrete form the child's creative ideas.  In the process, the child protégé hones his/her talents and skills, develops new interests and discovers other latent personal talents, which have remained hitherto unknown to the child, to teachers and to parents.

The PMC program also has an important social intent, namely, to harmless the creative potential of the older generation of adults in retirement who still have a valuable contribution to make to the full and healthy functioning of society.  They, too, like the creative child at risk, often lack opportunity to express themselves usefully and creatively, thus exacerbating a growing feeling of worthlessness and helplessness.  These negative feelings can also adversely impact on their physical and mental health, requiring costly medical and social programs to entrain and keep them healthy.  Mentoring affords them a healthy, humane alternative by providing them with an opportunity for wholesome mental, social and emotional contact with other mentors and with young people, thus enabling them to continue well on into their later years feeling useful and appreciated.

Mentors find themselves energized when they realize that their value and contribution to society can continue long after retirement.  They can also nurture a sense of aliveness by fostering the development of young people.  Many realize that their best legacy to the young is the inspiration, challenge and guidance they can provide. Other adults in this process of intergenerational mentoring can, very much like the retirees, see themselves a part of tomorrow's hope, linking their expertise and past experiences with the present ideals and visions of their protégés.

This particular mentoring program severs as a model for developing intergenerational and intercultural trust and cooperation. Other potentially beneficial outcomes would be an increase in intercultural harmony in a multicultural community like Toronto, and the challenge to people's intercultural and intergenerational stereotypes. The protégés can see for themselves that there is no limit to learning and creativity by reason of age, race or ethnic origin.  They learn, moreover, that imagination, determination, perseverance and hard work are as important as knowledge and skill.  The cooperative nature of the project also teaches the protégé the lifelong satisfaction that can come from caring about others and sharing with them in a spirit of generosity.  The PMC vision is a growing cadre of productive and responsible citizens who are willing and able to live and work collaboratively.