Soroptimist International Damansara’s Awakening and Rallying Inspired Students towards Empowerment (ARISE) programme was conducted with the secondary school students from the Desa Mentari B2 Learning Centre. Many of these children come from single-parent homes and have experienced grief and hardships from lives entrenched in cycles of poverty. The programme focused on filling them with the motivation and drive to break free from this cycle by prioritising their studies and shaping resilient mindsets to look towards a brighter future for themselves.
The programme was interactive and activity-based, designed in collaboration with training provider, Human Equation, for students between the ages of 15 and 19 to empower them with creating a vision for their future, helping them set academic goals that can support their desired future and motivating them to embrace behaviours that will drive their goals. In addition to mindset tools to open up their worldview and sharing sessions with volunteers who shared their own learning challenges, the day culminated with each student creating a vision board for their future and writing down their commitment to achieving their goals.
After completing the programme, the students shared how the activities during the programme inspired them to think about their dreams and realise what values really matter to them. One activity in particular, ‘What’s Your Superpower?’, helped the children to imagine how they could develop their skills and use them to help others.