Special Youth Edition of the Resilience Trails™
Thoughtful Trails and Conscious Conversations
Empowering youth to hold space for respect and deep empathy
In partnership with National Youth Council
Skillseed aims to build a more cohesive civil society across different segments of society, driven by trust. Towards this end, we launched Thoughtful Trails and Conscious Conversations (TTCC) in collaboration with the National Youth Council under the National Youth Fund (NYF) from December 2022 to July 2023.
The TTCC is a special youth edition of Skillseed’s Resilience Trails. A by, with, and for youth programme, we aimed to equip youths with the skills to co-facilitate the trails with a community member, as well as hold space for deep and respectful conversations for fellow youth participants to unpack questions around social inequality, mobility and community building.
We are also thankful for the sponsorship and support from GIC and Singapore Pools for this programme.
We completed a total of 15 trails from February to July 2023 alongside our 5 community guides, training 21 youth facilitators and engaging 136 youth participants along the way.
Our Journey
The project started with the recruitment of our youth facilitators in October 2022, followed by the onboarding and equipping of the facilitators from December 2022 to February 2023. Our actual trails and conversations with youth participants occurred from February to July 2023, ending off on 1 July 2023 with a programme closure.
Our facilitators and participants’ satisfaction
Overall, 85% of the youth participants and 100% of the youth facilitators rated a ‘4’ or ‘5’ with regard to their satisfaction with TTCC. 82% of the youth participants and 95% of the youth facilitators shared that they will recommend TTCC to others (rated 4 & above).
Our Impact on Youth Facilitators and Participants
There were our goals for both our youth facilitators and participants:
Increased awareness of and appreciation for the lived experiences and strengths of vulnerable families and their communities
Increased awareness of one’s own biases/assumptions about a certain community, and therefore increased clarity around different perspectives of, and from that particular community
Increased confidence in how one can engage in a dignity-promoting way with stakeholders from different backgrounds and/or cultures
Increased knowledge of how one can go about building trust and relationships across differences
Based on our pre and post survey results, we are happy to share that we have observed a positive increase in the percentage change across all of these indicators.
Through the immersive nature of the Trails, the youth participants fostered deeper empathy, awareness and understanding of different communities’ lived experiences. They also grasped the complexities of social inequality, and left with a more possibility-oriented mindset on addressing these gaps. The Youth Facilitators benefited from sensing the vista of youth sentiment on this issue, whilst enhancing their capabilities in facilitation. From the pre and post survey responses, we also observed an increased desire from participants to use their skills and knowledge to give back to the community and society.
Average % change across 21 facilitators
Average % change across 15 runs (136 participants)
Building a community of Youth Facilitators
The youth facilitators also reported an increase in confidence in their ability to lead and run inclusive and meaningful conversations around sensitive topics. After the programme, 20 facilitators shared that they are confident in facilitating conversations around potentially polarizing topics (rated “agree or “strongly agree”), reflecting an almost 70% increase in facilitators’ confidence from pre-programme to post-programme.
Out of the 21 facilitators that we inducted, nearly 70% of the original cohort have agreed to continue their journey with us! We are grateful for their continual support toward Skillseed.
Impact on our Community Guides
We have channeled a total of $1,800 directly to our Community Guides, who are past or current beneficiaries of AMK or Cheng San FSC as they co-led the trails together with the youth facilitators.
An enriching experience for everyone involved
This programme was super well planned out and every module and session had a clear message that was clearly brought across!...The practicum was something I enjoyed the most though, because not only did it prepare us for the trail we were going to facilitate, but it also let us get to know our community guide on a much more personal level.
— Edna Chong, Youth Facilitator
I really appreciated the feedback given after each session and the sharings on dignity—which was very inspiring and meaningful. The clarity and value of every session was clear and emphasised consistently. My key takeaways are neutral questioning and seeing how the guides engaged and responded to on-the-ground questions.
— Yap Cai Ni, Youth Facilitator
I enjoyed the reflection/conversation segment as it was really thought-provoking.
I've also learned that we need to pay more attention to marginalised groups in our society. Even though they are minorities, they still face their own challenges and have their own opinions, and they deserve to be heard.
— Lim Jia Yi, a youth participant
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