The First Steps of our Future Leaders
On 20th July 2015, over 400 Year 3 participants and around 100 overseas participants stepped away from their routine school activities to participate in Y.LEAD seminar, held in our very own school compound. Organised mainly by Year 5 River Valley High School students, the 5-day youth leadership seminar aims to empower youths to become future leaders with outstanding leadership skills, a strong awareness of global issues, and ability to connect with people of different social backgrounds. This one-of-a-kind seminar even attracted the attention of the media, namely Channel NewsAsia, who came down specially to cover this event. At the start of the day, students from local schools streamed in to register for the seminar, before collecting their Y.LEAD T-shirts and name tags. Donning their new Y.LEAD T-shirts, they joined their own groups enthusiastically, as despite having unfamiliar faces in the group greeted them. Meanwhile, the organising committees were caught up in meetings to finalise the action plans for the seminar and take note of last-minute changes to accommodate unforeseen circumstances. Back in the individual groups, the facilitators took charge as they initiated the icebreaker games to break the barrier of unfamiliarity between the participants who had came from different classes, schools and countries. Although the participants kept to themselves initially, they began to understand each other better through various activities and gradually opened up to their group members and facilitators, growing closer to one another as a group, and as a family. After the round of icebreakers, the participants took a personality profiling test. This allowed the participants to understand their own, and also one another’s personal attributes, values and life skills better, which would allow the team to better allocate tasks to the members. The next programme in line was the opening ceremony. It was an honour to have Ms Grace Fu, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, grace the ceremony as the guest-of-honour and deliver a speech which opened up to us various perspectives. In her speech, she emphasized several times the need for Singapore to become more energy-efficient and practise the 3Rs- Reuse, Reduce and Recycle-, often to reduce our consumption levels, in order to become a greener Singapore. She stated that the cause of global warming boils down to our consumption levels. The more we consume, the more resources we would diminish. On another note, she also hopes that the upcoming United Nations climate change conference in Paris would be able to deliver something concrete. During her dialogue session, she provided responses to the participants’ queries and in spite of time constraints. She saw beyond the purpose of the panel session of being merely answering queries and clarifying doubts; to her, it is an opportunity for students to practice speaking in front of large crowds. She urged the overseas students to pose questions as well. Nonetheless, there was great coordination between the emcees and Ms Grace Fu, making the opening ceremony a successful one. We also had the great opportunity watch singers Clinton Lim, Wienna Koh and Gerald Goh, accompanied by the talented pianist Elaina Ong, perform for the opening ceremony. Together, they performed the song “Home”, in commemoration of Singapore’s Golden Jubilee, SG50. Before the conclusion of the opening ceremony, the River Valley High School dance society performed a dance item depicting the everyday lives of ASEAN women, which was closely related to the theme of the Y.LEAD seminar, which was ‘Heritage, culture and sports’. The performance put up by the dance society earned thunderous applause and cheers from the audience for their elegant dance moves. Day one of the Y.LEAD seminar drew to a close with the groups playing various game, such as ‘H2O’, ‘Elope’ and ‘Whacko!’, and cheers to strengthen teamwork and friendships amongst the participants. After all, as Ms Grace Fu mentioned in her speech, it is only with strong teamwork, that we will be able to create a bright future for ourselves.