If you could go back in time and meet your teenage self, what would you tell her? What would you encourage her to explore, to ask, and to do? These were the questions that YWLC’s Social Impact team considered as they conceptualised a brand new confidence workshop for the Female and Fearless (F&F) programme this year. Held annually, the F&F programme aims to build confidence, leadership and digital skills in female students. This programme was held over two weekends in November 2022. The first workshop, focusing on STEM, was conducted in collaboration with Goldman Sachs on 5 November 2022. Click here to read about it!
Confidence and leadership skills are vital to our growth. Many of us wish that we could have learnt toolkits to build these skills much earlier. On 12 November 2022, 58 students from Yuan Ching Secondary School, Woodgrove Secondary School, and Edgefield Secondary School gathered at the National Design Centre to learn about self-identity, body positivity, and discover their leadership styles!
For the first segment, students were encouraged to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses. Facilitators also highlighted the importance of building a growth mindset. For the second segment on body positivity, they got up to play games and win prizes at 4 different stations! You could hear laughter and songs erupting from different parts of the auditorium as they learnt about self care, fitness, and critically, that we are all beautiful in our own way. For the third segment, they learnt about different leadership styles and reflected on which traits resonate with them the most. This beautiful workbook guided the students through all 3 segments. Here are some snapshots of the fun they had!
Students also got to hear from Vanessa Iloste, HR VP Asia at Sephora, and Shobana Paul, Human Resources Director. Operations, South Asia Pacific Middle East North Africa at L'Oréal. Vanessa gave a vulnerable sharing, and recounted her journey of growth, all the way from her teenage years. Shobana reminded the audience that happiness comes from being grateful for the people and resources we have around us.
We hope that lessons learnt from this workshop would empower these students as they take flight and take charge of the exciting journey that awaits them!
YWLC’s Social Impact team works with secondary schools to identify female students who would best benefit from this workshop. If you would like to refer a school to us for this programme, please email impact@ywlc.org.sg. To find out more about YWLC's Social Impact activities, click here.
Organising Committee: Social Impact
Organising Team: Nithya Karthikeyan, Vigneswari A, Caren Tso, Liesa Desisca, Baey Yan Ling, Joanne Ong, Audrey Tim
Author: Audrey Tim