One of my best friends in elementary school was a son of Turkish immigrants.
His parents didn’t speak any German, so naturally he had serious issues with the language, too.
This held him back in school, which lead to him getting sent to the lowest tier of secondary school.
(We have 3 tiers in Germany. The highest one (Gymnasium) qualifies you for university, the middle one (Realschule) used to qualify you for highly-skilled work that doesn’t require university, and the lowest one (Hauptschule) for the trades. Nowadays, even trades jobs scoff at the middle tier, and the lowest tier is basically a direct route to a life of shit jobs or unemployment.)
But just by hanging out with him as a friend, I taught him German, how to use and fix computers, showed him the world of books, and connected him to German society better. I’m not trying to brag, he was a very bright kid and it wasn’t like I was doing this as welfare, he was just a good friend and we shared what we liked with each other.

25 years later we met again by accident. He actually recognized me when he saw me on the street in a different city.
By then he had switched from Hauptschule to Realschule, went on to get his qualification for university, studied economics, created his own company in the IT sector, and had 6 employees. And he told me that my friendship was what kept him out of the wrong circles. On the old computer I had given him (which my parents had replaced) he had taught himself how to use office programs, so he was the only one in the family who could do the taxes, which taught him about finances.
At the time I met him again I was actually unemployed and working odd manual labor jobs under the table, after failing my university education twice due to depression.
He connected me to some contacts he had, which landed me an IT support job, and now I have a pretty good career as a sysadmin.

Not sure how deeply positive it was necessarily, but as far as I can tell I changed at least one person’s life significantly.

When I was in middle school I learned how to solve the Rubik’s cube through online tutorials, and afterwards I was basically addicted to it for a while and I was messing with a cube all the time. One of my classmates was interested in learning how to solve one, so I drew a bunch of guides and taught him the terminology, and soon enough he was also hooked on the Rubik’s cube.

I eventually grew tired of it, but he kept going and learned how to solve all sorts of smaller and bigger cubes and pyramids. I bumped into him at uni a few years later and he had a cube in his hand lol. Last I heard of him he was even participating in some local competitions, but idk what he’s up to now.

Even if he ultimately gave up on his speedcubing dreams I can at least say that I introduced him to a cool new hobby that kept him entertained for several years.

When I first started my career, I was in a new town and looking for friends. I met this guy, and we started hanging out. It was cool, we had a lot in common and spent many days playing video games together and hanging out at the local stores. He told me his anxiety was so bad that he dropped out of high school, didn’t have any other friends, was still living with his parents, and couldn’t really hold down a job. We had some deep conversations about these things, trying to work through the whys and things he could do to get over them. One day, he told me that he really appreciated our friendship, and that it helped him get over some of his anxiety and basically feel worthy as a person. He eventually started hanging out with other people too, and even got a girlfriend. Eventually, he went on to get his GED (turns out it was easy, he just didn’t have the confidence to try), is going to community college, moved out of his parents, and has a job he enjoys in his field of study already. I moved away, and we don’t talk as much as we used to, but last I heard he was doing great. I don’t feel like I did much, just hanging out with a friend, but I’m glad I was a part of getting his life moving in the right direction.

I mentoured some jr devs and some apprentices. You end up learning quite a bit about yourself, your industry, and your straighths and weaknesses pretty quickly doing so. Telling someone, “well that just what worked” is not good enough.

A few times I’ve been there for friends and helped them through rough times just by being someone to talk to.

But I also helped my best friend and roommate by paying most of the bills while he developed his IT/engineering skills. He’s got a good career now but struggled for a few years.

Then I took someone in a couple months ago and she’s staying in my attic now. That’s going well, my wife and I get along great with her. Hopefully it’ll all turn out well.

Yep.

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