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IMPACT 0561: SUSTAINABLE RESOURCES THAT ARE FUN AND NOURISHING FOR THE SOUL

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.

Cheryl Ho, 26, works with her team of three on Wave Station, which aims to provide youth with a deeper understanding of green efforts that are currently being done in Sentosa and how they can play their part. The team will create a pop-up social platform that communicates Sentosa’s sustainable offerings and biodiversity through Immersive Audio Storytelling. It will feature a series of Podcasts, Live Broadcasts and relaxing audio experiences that will inspire youth to take actions towards a sustainable future.

Today, she shares more about the project and what they are passionate about!

What was your role within your YAC project?

I am the writer and voiceover artist of the project, working alongside a producer/host and a sound designer/audio engineer. We have been working together over the last three years creating audio guides on wellness, and immersive podcasts adventures!

What motivated you to join YAC?

This time, we are so excited to be expanding into the nature sphere by inviting youth nature experts to listen, explore and tell us the secrets of nature sites in Singapore. We’ll be starting with Sentosa and eventually expanding to other nature sites on our island.

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

As a team, we were keen to explore the synergies between audio experiences and the YAC challenge statement, and hoped to extend the possibilities of our skillset as creators to real world solutions. We also wanted to be a part of a community of young entrepreneurs and change makers who share the same willingness and desire to innovate solutions. By being within the YAC community, we believed there were lots to learn from mentors, peers and even amongst our own team members.

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

As we went along the journey, we became recognised as social entrepreneurs. It was new to us. While we had established our business for a couple of years now, it was our first time acknowledging the social side of our company. Of course, the journey still continues and we’re so glad to be a part of Youth Co:Lab to further tease this out.

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

The activities during the lectures experienced at YAC were helpful in that we were given tools by expert speakers and could directly implement them in our project. We also had a lot of immediate personal feedback during breakout room sessions, meaning we could clarify anything we didn’t understand.

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

It was really enjoyable to meet different people who are passionate about different causes and also part of the start-up economy in Singapore. It provided us with ideas for cross-collaboration among teams.

In terms of developing our YAC idea itself, we went through many iterations of the project as we were not entirely sure of how we needed to respond to the challenge statement. For example, we were not sure if we were creating a solution that was specifically tailored to Sentosa, and if the project itself was a collaboration in discussion with Sentosa.

But we decided for ourselves that we wanted to create some kind of framework that could be implemented in other nature sites in Singapore too, and that helped us clarify our aim of the project.

As artists, we are always interested in capturing everyday things in unique ways, through storytelling. With the constant bombardment of online posts, visuals, more news and short-form content, we are hoping to create sustainability resources for our generation in a way that is fun yet nourishing for the soul.

At the moment we are in talks with a few youth experts in the sustainability communication sphere to see how we can support them in their journey within our project itself, and looking for more of such partnerships to arise. Feel free to reach out to us at hello@artwave.studio!

We picked up on the various business models offered, considered the pain points of our customers and users, and how we can alleviate that. Ultimately, our biggest takeaway were the opportunities to further develop our business and the connections we made with people involved in the programme that will continue to positively impact our journey.

This article was published on May 5, 2022