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IMPACT 0545: BY STUDENTS, FOR STUDENTS: HELPING THEM ACHIEVE THEIR GOALS

Youth Action Challenge (YAC) is a platform for youth to provide solutions that tackle the issues we are concerned about. Since October 2021, over 80 teams and more than 310 youths have undertaken the YAC Season 3 journey.

Tan Hewie, 21 is the Head of Student Welfare in SGExams, a non-profit organisation run by students, for students. The Student Welfare department deals with mental wellness amongst students in Singapore and opens conversations about mental illnesses. They recently launched their new ECG Pathfinding Programme through season 3 of the Youth Action Challenge. Today he shares more about what SGExams hopes to achieve!

What was your role within your YAC project?

I was in charge of the Compass programmes, a series of supplementary programmes meant to aid in the mentorship process by providing useful resources and experiences that could help the student in his/her mentorship journey. Main components of the Compass programmes include Fireside Chats, Webinars and Articles.

What motivated you to join YAC?

I felt that YAC was a good opportunity to learn and experience setting up a social endeavour while being able to work for a cause that I’m invested in. YAC allowed us to run a larger scale programme due to the funding provided, which opened up a lot of opportunities and choices for us in terms of activities.

Can you share with us your experience with your YAC project?

YAC was challenging yet rewarding. Through the program, due to the larger scale of activities that we were holding compared to some of the other events in SGExams, there was a certain degree of difficulty to establish the legitimacy of our pilot program and work within the focused scope of our project. However, we managed to work through these difficulties and the end-product of the participants going through their mentorship journey was satisfying to see.

What are some challenges you faced while working on your YAC project?

There were some initial difficulties during the brainstorming phase to pare potential activities down to the specific ones that maximise effectiveness. We had to be sure that our program was able to directly impact mentees. At the same time, we had to handle a large number of stakeholders (mentors and mentees); there were some challenges involved to handle and plan around this larger group of participants.

Could you share more on how your project has a positive impact?

Our project’s mentorship model allowed mentees to directly experience a fully planned roadmap that charts out their progress over a period of time. Through this programme, our mentees are able to find their way through a comprehensive life plan with the help of our many mentors, and hopefully can better navigate their way to hit their goals.

Were there any key takeaways or learning points from your time with YAC?

Through YAC, I learnt a lot about the process of starting up our own venture, particularly about certain key considerations that we had to make during the ideation and needs analysis process to ensure that our project had sufficient scope for success. In the wider scheme of things, I had a greater understanding of the benefits of working as a team and the greater efficiency that is achieved through proper delegation of work.