Charity to pilot Minecraft program for reclusive teens, Latest News from Singapore

Socially reclusive teenagers will soon be able to play team games and take their first steps in six months to talk to their peers – all without leaving their bedrooms.

Each week, they will meet in a virtual world of the game Minecraft – which allows players to explore worlds, collect resources and build whatever they want – for a series of activities.

Impart, a charity group which helps troubled young people, has designed games such as a railway adventure and a parkour activity to teach young people about topics such as healthy living, self-esteem and relationships . The games aim to gradually equip them with the skills needed to take on challenges.

The content is adapted from an intervention program designed by Dr Cecilia Essau, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology in London. Called Super Skills For Life, this program helps young people deal with emotional difficulties such as anxiety and depression.

Around 12 young people aged 13 to 18 in Singapore will join the 12-week pilot program, which is expected to start on October 28.

This new initiative to reach out to reclusive youth is the latest in Impart’s programs aimed at supporting young people facing adversity. These include those who are neither educated, employed nor trained, also known as Neet youth.

“We wanted to meet young people where they are,” said Joshua Tay, 30, co-founder of Impart.

Around 17,000 young people aged 15 to 24 in Singapore were not in school, working or training in 2023. This represents 4.1 percent of the country’s young people, according to the 2024 Population Survey active part of the Ministry of Manpower.

Mr Tay first met his co-founder Narasimman Tivasiha Mani, 40, in 2015.

Mr Narasimman was a social worker at the Singapore Boys’ Hostel, where Mr Tay worked as a supervisory staff member. Curious about young offenders, Mr Tay had joined the youth rehabilitation facility for a gap year before starting his studies at Yale-NUS College.

As young offenders were provided with resources to get back on track, Mr Tay realized there was a need to support them on the outside.

Mr Tay teamed up with Mr Narasimman and, for two years, they tried to engage young people through tutoring sessions at a community center, without much success.

“There’s something happening every week,” Mr. Narasimman said, citing family members who relapse into substance use, young people who have conflicts with their parents and staying up late on the phone. Other issues include gang crime, neglect and abuse, and incarcerated parents.

The duo therefore decided to meet the young people at their doorstep.

The first teenager they managed to help was 17-year-old Mohammed Narish. He had failed most of his N-level exams because he overslept and dropped out, but he wanted to try again in 2017, despite his mother telling him he wasn’t cut out for school.

Mr. Narasimman, along with some Yale-NUS College students and others, volunteered to tutor the boy at his apartment or at a nearby shopping mall. But he was often late or didn’t show up.

Still, he got Bs and Cs for N levels, to the team’s surprise.

“He didn’t understand why these people kept showing up,” Mr Tay said. “Sometimes the group programs in the centers have the three strikes rule: if you don’t show up a third time, you’re out. Narish had known it all his life.

“It surprised him so much that every time he knew someone was waiting for him, he would go home and study twice as hard.”

Now 24, Mr Narish, a graduate of Nitec Institute of Technical Education, has returned to Impart full-time as a youth mental health advocate and para-counsellor, with core skills in counseling to provide crisis intervention and emotional support.

Mr Narasimman, who holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Murdoch University, said he identified with young people, had struggled with his own mental health and was tough. He had sought help from a psychologist at one point.

When he started helping young people after leaving the Singapore Boys’ Hostel in 2020, he survived on his savings for eight months as he did not receive any salary during this period. He even paid out of his own pocket to support some young people when they needed money for groceries, transportation and emergency money in times of crisis.

The light came at the end of the tunnel when Mr Tay called him in April 2021 to tell him that they had enough donors and funds to start Impart proper the next month.

Mr Tay, who studied philosophy, politics and economics and graduated from university in 2021, said he chose a different path from his classmates, who turned to fields such as management consulting and technology.

“I saw a real need and I saw we had a real opportunity to meet those needs,” he said.

“It came at a time in my life when I saw more clearly how much grace I had received that brought me to my current place in life. And grace freely received also frees you to devote yourself to the needs of others.

The team now has 12 full-time employees, three part-time employees and more than 300 volunteers.

In 2022, Ms. Nicole Pang joined Impart full-time to start its mental health branch.

Since its beginnings in tutoring, the charity has, over the years, added programs connecting young people with volunteers to teach them coping skills, as well as sporting initiatives.. It now serves more than 400 young people each week.

A major challenge for the team arises when young people or their parents refuse help. Mr. Narasimman had to spend a lot of time convincing a young person to open up.

He recalled how a resistant parent refused to let his son receive Impart’s mental health services, insisting his son had no such problems. He persuaded her to let her son take a sports class.

On what motivates him, Mr Narasimman said: “I know what it means to be in a dark place, where no one can understand you and nothing will work for you.

“Young people might be where they are because many adults have failed them. »

“So I want to run alongside them, even if they push me away. We can just be there for them even if they don’t want to be there for themselves.