Singapore’s youths are constantly pushed by multiple factors such as stress or expectations placed on them by society. At a young tender age, they have to ensure excellent performance in their studies, feel the heat when outstanding peers surpass them, and also account to parents for their academics and social life. In addition, struggling to survive in an increasingly globally-competitive environment does nothing to alleviate their plight. Therefore, our group feels that there are certain qualities that youths definitely have to possess in order for them to cope with possible setbacks that they will inevitably experience in life.
Therefore, in conjunction with our theme "enrich youths", we would like to cultivate three main qualities in youths, which are resilience, innovation and confidence.
Resilience refers to the act of rebounding from a failure, being unfazed by previous setbacks and believing in trying again. Resilience is thus essential because it is directly related to how it can aid in youths dealing with problems.
Resilient youths view failure as a means to learn from their mistake and then trying again, and not view it as an end in itself.
Innovation broadly refers to the introduction of something new. The ability to innovate will give youths an edge over others, especially in the ever-changing environment now. Youths will be empowered as they think of innovative ideas and solutions to adapt to situational problems.
Being confident is having the self-assurance and trust in their own capabilities. This quality can help youths to face unfortunate events or breeze through sticky situations because they have adequate belief that these problems can be addressed.
However, based on our surveys and various researches, we realise that these three key qualities seem lacking or only moderately exhibited in modern-day youths. Hence, we came up with an entrepreneurship camp which is able to promote the three qualities mentioned above.
Pre-camp
A Pre-camp briefing will be held two weeks before the actual commencement of the camp. Participants will be informed about the outline, rules and regulations, and aim of the camp so that they will know what to expect. Groupings will also be released during this briefing so that members can make the necessary arrangements to meet up. Mentors will also be available to each group for consultation.
Participants are given the opportunity to interact with one another. They will need to brainstorm for business ideas in their groups. A proposal will be submitted to their mentor for vetting of preliminary idea. Materials needed for the camp will be distributed during this briefing as well.
Actual Camp - Phase 1
Students enter the entrepreneurship camp well prepared with their innovative ideas due to pre-camp preparation.
The entrepreneurship camp is debuted by an opening speech from Mrs Nanz Chong . Having displayed RIC throughout the course of her business venture, she makes the ideal key-note speaker for this camp, which aims to promote RIC amongst youths. In the speech, she will mention her journey, how the three qualities came into play, and her advice to participants. The speech will inspire and motivate participants to excel in the camp and also to emulate her by exhibiting these qualities in their daily lives.
The participants will also attend workshops and talks conducted by various professionals that we have collaborated with. Drama , public speaking , innovation and entrepreneurship seminars will be conducted to promote confidence and innovation skills. By attending these talks and workshops, participants can apply the skills and tips they have learnt onto their product ideas, resulting in a gradual improvement of product over a few days.
In addition participants will play entrepreneurship board games that teach entrepreneurship skills in a fun and interactive way.
The performance of each group would be judged from these activities and recorded using a point system. Teams will be assessed on the level of innovativeness of the product, the confidence level of the students, and the feasibility of the product.
At the end of phase 1, the judging for the top three innovative and feasible idea of the product would be released and this will also allow groups to gain points.
Actual Camp - Phase 2
Despite the hard work and effort the participants have put into their product idea, the teams which did not get the top three places might be demoralized. However, they will still work on their product, and continue consulting their mentors to prepare to launch their product. Resilience and confidence will be required to continue pushing their product. They will work towards winning the next few tasks.
This phase of the entrepreneurship camp mainly focuses on entrepreneurship-based tasks. Firstly, the group members of each team are split into specific and different roles which are the chairman, vice chairman, finance, marketing and retailing base on their own allocation. Participants would need to show their confidence in taking up the various positions.
The main task for teams is to sell their product. They are assessed firstly on the effectiveness of their marketing strategy during the actual selling of product. Secondly, they are assessed on requests for sponsors, and allocation of budget. Thirdly, the teams have to earn maximum profit. For each criterion, the top three teams will be awarded more points.
Innovation will be needed to brainstorm for appropriate marketing strategy. Alternatively, if the teams carry out advertisement campaigns to the public, much confidence has to be displayed to handle the crowd.
When searching for the relevant sponsors to provide venue and revenue, confidence is needed to approach sponsors. As participants are also subjected to rejection they will have to display resilience and sponsorship is a great necessity.
At the end, students are to participate in a consolidation oral presentation activity where they will need to evaluate their experiences. This serves as a platform to recall what they have learnt and ensure that they leave the camp with what they have acquired.
Besides the entrepreneurship aspect, participants would also have Game-for-the-Day activities. The first activity, “Picturing Falls” would involve constructing a given picture (1m x 1m) by using domino pieces. Domino pieces collapse easily creating a domino effect where all the pieces before will collapse as well. Resilience can be promoted from this game as this game requires a lot of patience and repeated attempts for success.
Another activity is “ Trustfall” where each individual would be tested on their confidence while performing this activity. Each individual is required to climb a structure 4-tables high, after which they are required to fall backwards off the structure, where a thick safety mat will be placed. This task will help to develop youths’ self-confidence also serve as a challenge to those afraid of heights.
The last activity would be “Problem solving scenarios”. Each team will be given business scenarios while their task is to solve the problem. Each team would be given specific scenarios. An example would be coping with the problem of sudden surplus of perishable goods due to an error in the purchasing department. Participants would have to formulate innovative solutions to solve the problems.
Post Camp
Participants would be required to keep a diary during the course of the camp, to pen down their experiences, thoughts and feelings. The diary will be documented into 3 parts, for participants to note down how the camp has helped them in the development of each character. Also, we would film down the camp and edit it to form a short video.
After the camp, they will do a post camp feedback form for us.
Keeping a diary provides students with the means to note how much they have grown in terms of resilience, confidence and creativity. The diaries of participants would be published on online blogs to encourage other youths to have a higher level of resilience, confidence and innovation levels. The video can be posted on online video sites such as YouTube, in order to allow the wider community to learn from the experiences of the participants in the camp and benefit from such activities. It would also allow participants to reflect upon and relive the times they had in the camp.
