The inaugural “Reinvent for Good Challenge 2020” was organized by SingYouth Hub, a non-profit organization that seeks to empower youths to become social entrepreneurs and civic minded leaders. The competition invited youths across universities and tertiary institutions in Singapore to come up with ideas to empower secondary school students to become future-ready youths equipped with skills necessary for success in the 21st century and beyond.
Singapore Management University’s “Team Social Angels”, consisting of Slevin Chua, Year 3, Yong Pung How School of Law and Lee Kong Chian School of Business (LKCSB); Joelle Soe Kai Xin, Year 4, LKCSB; Gabrielle Allison Maswi, Year 3, School of Accountancy and School of Social Sciences (SOSS) and Vanessa Yeo Zhi En, Year 3, SOSS picked mental wellness as the challenge they wanted to address. In a Straits Times article (19 July 2021) about the competition, Ms Sun Xueling, Minister of State for Education and Social and Family Development, who was Guest-of-Honour at the award ceremony on 9 July 2021 said, “We need to work with young people to find out what’s bothering them.”
From October 2020 to April 2021, the team went through three rounds of pitching. At the finals, they stood out to emerge champions, winning the judges over with their creative solution “Project #LIT VIBES”, a series of workshops which incorporate popular Gen Z trends such as Tik Tok and K-pop idol stories into mindfulness life lessons designed specifically for youths.
Ms Sun commended Team Social Angels for stepping up to tackle mental resilience in Singaporean youths in her Facebook post. She said, “Being mentally resilient is indeed key to help one be future-ready. Part of being resilient is about having a positive mindset and outlook, a sense of purpose in life, and learning how to cope when our expectations are not met. It is also important for us to connect with one another more, at an emotional level, and talk about our feelings instead of bottling them up.”
Team Social Angels’ project leader, Slevin Chua felt that the competition was an especially rewarding experience. He said, “Our solution came together because my team is passionate about making a difference in the life of our youths. As we are youths ourselves, we understood how to capture youth’s attention and effectively share important life lessons about mental resilience. We hope that our solution will be able to strengthen students’ mental health and inspire young lives.”
SingYouth Hub, the organiser of the competition, will be working together with the team to implement their winning idea together with licensed therapists and schools.