Working with C3 has granted me insight into the lives of mainstream youths from poor and difficult backgrounds. While a lot of attention has been given to youths-at-risk, as seen from the myriad of social service and non-profit organizations focusing on intervention plans, I realized that little credit has been given to organizations that focus on prevention strategies—keeping vulnerable youths off the streets and mentoring them through engagement in youth activities, to ensure that they are equipped and empowered to be good citizens of society in the future. Initially, I admit that continuously playing with the youths at the centre and talking to them about seemingly superficial things felt rather meaningless. However, the staff shared that even play could be intentional, and I admired their strong sense of purpose even in mundane things. They showed me the importance of keeping these youths coming, and how everything speaks. Our willingness to engage in the things...
Initially, our main challenge was the execution of our grand plans to engage, equip, and empower the youths at the centre. The youths were very willing to engage with us through sports and various games, however, many of them come in and out of the centre, and had the option of leaving the moment they felt bored. The small numbers also made it difficult for us to hold structured workshop sessions and plan a larger community games day for their community. However, upon our interaction with Wen Jie, a Calvary Community Care (C3) staff, he challenged us to rethink our idea of what empowering and equipping looked like, and get creative with how that could be done. Working within the manpower constraints, we thus overcame this challenge by adopting a more personalized approach, which required us to be highly sensitive to every growth opportunity available that came up as we played and engaged with them. Our learning also had to be highly intentional, as we had to intentional...