Play for resilience and fitness
- Dr Delina Swee
- Sep 19, 2021
- 2 min read
10 months flew by since my previous post. Sometime in 2020, the curious tinkerer started volunteering in the space of youth mental wellbeing. One of the learnings that has emerged from tinkering in this space were new friends; and the culmination of an exciting community project! Hence I think it warrants a post to resurrect this blog site.
How do we use experiential learning to reinforce character building concepts taught in school? How do we implement such experiential learning programmes beyond the school in the community?
Play.
One of the forms of play is sports. While sports are known to build fitness, character and resilience, the process is often dependent on how equipped the trainers are to seize teachable moments to coach trainees. Developing community programmes with sports trainers would also build capacity for them to infuse resilience building into their sports.
Blessed and delighted to be able to collaborate with a social enterprise, kickboxing for peace, to develop a 10-session progamme for female youth. We incorporated resilience building content -- character values, emotional literacy and self-regulation tools -- with the sports curriculum. Beyond targeting both fitness and resilience building, we hope these youth would find a community of support; a safe space where they are respected and valued. Lighting a spark to jumpstart social connectedness for a generation of youth who have been increasingly isolated in a pressure cooker environment.
I was heartened by likeminded volunteers from the YMBH who supported in different ways like supporting the training, EDM design and even doubling up as facilitators. Last week, we completed the facilitation sharing session for the team. :)
Will these efforts bear fruit? In the spirit of play and thoughtful playfulness, as what Michael Jordan said, "Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game."
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