While we had lots of fun thinking and creating alongside students from Hwa Chong Institution and other secondary schools like Juying Secondary School, the students also gave us plenty of food for thought about the issues they care most about, and how we can best empower them to be change-makers. Here are just some of the things we learnt from them!
Fresh out of the IB Diploma Programme at St. Joseph’s Institution, I looked at my calendar. January was to be spent holidaying and preparing for University applications. In February, I would juggle between healthcare shadowing and applications. I glared at March. A wide, gaping space speckled with numbers stared back at me with foreboding.
Though we'd already trained hundreds of youth through our various courses, this would be the first programme we would be conducting for youths who happened to have disabilities. Myriad questions raced through my mind then: Would we be able to grasp the nuances and sensitivities of coaching the differently abled? Would we be able to adapt our curriculum and pedagogy to meet their needs? And personally, would I be too loud, too soft… too unconsciously annoying in my mannerisms and gestures?
Art is what made a RISD graduate cross an ocean to lead an organisation in Chiang Mai, thousands of miles away from home; art is what found two Singaporeans navigating songtaews and bustling Thai back alleys in order to design a course about how it might be harnessed for social good; and art is what is giving people voices in this incredible community, even now, as we speak.
