As The Circle Education approaches its 30th anniversary in August 2026, we’re taking this year to reflect, honour, and celebrate the people and moments that brought us here. Over the next ten months, join us on a journey into our 30th year. Each story we share is a point on our circle that has shaped who we are becoming. We start with Natalya Alonso who started Pass it On as a student in high school.
Natalya Alonso was just seventeen when she created a mentorship program in high school to support middle school students. It was the start of our Pass it On program that is going into its 16th year in September.
Natalya conceived the idea of a mentorship program during her Grade 11 year. “It could be the end of Grade 10 as well”, she recalls, trying to remember the details as best as she can. “I have a younger brother who was in middle school at that time, and one of his friends attempted suicide. That was so shocking to me, and it got me thinking that kids in middle school could use some extra guidance and support.”
For Natalya, middle school wasn’t a great experience. “Nothing absolutely terrible happened to me, but it was not a time in my life that I was thriving, and most of my friends felt the same. You are transitioning from being a child to a young adult and have to figure out who you are. There is so much going on in that stage of life, on top of the evergreen issues that teenagers often face, like bullying or harassment.”
People you can trust
She started thinking of ways to make middle school a little bit easier, and envisioned a mentorship program, where middle schoolers are paired with a high school student, as a helpful additional source of guidance and support. “It’s so much better when you have someone looking out for you that you can trust and help get you through that time.”
Natalya took her idea to the high school principal, who connected her with the middle school counsellor, and from there, the ball started rolling. She reached out to friends to recruit mentors, put up flyers, made announcements at school, and launched the first year with seven mentors paired with seven middle school buddies.
“It was pretty unstructured that first year, to be honest”, she looks back. “I think we just connected the mentors with the mentees, and we gave them a lot of freedom in terms of what they wanted to pursue in their relationship. We had a couple of meet-ups with the entire group, but we mostly let the mentors facilitate the relationship with their little buddy.”
Natalya took her buddy out regularly for ice cream, or a walk around the park. “We would just hang out and chat about everyday life. I let her guide the conversation. I was the person she could discuss things with, if she wanted to. It was hard to see the impact at the time, but I think it was a good experience for both of us and we stayed in touch for quite some time after I graduated and left for university.”
Summer student
After two years, The Circle Education (then known as SWOVA) took over the program. “I remember that I worked as a summer student for SWOVA, helping map out what the program could look like before I left.” After that summer, Natalya, who now lives in Vancouver, wasn’t involved with the program anymore. “It wasn’t hard for me to leave the program behind at that point. I felt it was in good hands, and I was ready for my new life and had a million things going on. I have to say that I didn’t have lofty ambitions for the program when I left, but I was happy to hear that Pass it On is now well-established, with a program for boys as well, and that it is expanding to Victoria in the fall.”
Natalya thinks that Pass it On is as relevant now – if not more so- when she started the program in 2007. “A lot of the problems middle school and high school kids have to deal with now are still the same, but there are also new challenges. When I was in high school, most kids didn’t have a mobile phone, and TikTok and Snapchat didn’t exist yet. Social media brings on a whole set of different challenges for young people. The internet seems to be posing more risks than ever, with predatory online communities targeting young people. Everything is much more polarized as well, so yes, these kinds of programs are still needed.”
Help from friends
Natalya graduated in 2008 and left Salt Spring Island to attend business school at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. After finishing her PhD at the University of British Columbia, she started working as a professor at the SFU Beedie School of Business, where her research is aimed at solving problems on the work floor, related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Looking back at her time as a high school student and setting up a program to help younger kids to navigate school life, she is most proud of “the willingness of both the mentors and the mentees to come together and do this.” She adds, “It was really neat to see participants putting themselves out there in a vulnerable way. That is what stayed with me the most. This program is not there just because of me, other students thought the same way and wanted to support the initiative. Maybe it’s because Salt Spring is such a small island that we care about each other.”
