Will these efforts bear fruit? Did we play, have fun, and enjoy the game?

This was my last question in my previous post on the community project on 10-week kickboxing for resilience and fitness.

3 months flew by!

Will these efforts bear fruit?

Michael Jordan once said, "Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game." Did we do that?

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Youth participants sweating it out on the bags!

Youth outcomes:

• Demonstrated an improvement in identifying personal stressors, and ability in managing their stress. (Average 4.2 out of 5)

• Drop in stress level after completing the programme.

• Younger youth (15-26 yo) reported feeling better about themselves.

Unexpected outcome for capacity building:

Glad for some community builders who experienced first hand how we weaved the resilience building component into sports. Hope their learnings would translate into new tools and improved programmes for the underprivileged youth under their care.

Proud of the growth of the youth who achieved the goals they set for themselves! It was a joy listening to their takeaways. One participant, Rx, shared how she improved from “reacting” to “thinking” (identify feelings then acting), and found useful the cognitive tool (power of yet) in reframing her negative thoughts. Another youth, CC, shared how she observed her own maladaptive avoidance on a stressful day, and used what she had learnt during this programme.

The ladies inspired us with:

• their courage to challenge themselves

• honesty in sharing their vulnerabilities

• their experiences of the power of community in growing together!

Grateful for the partnership of - Kickboxing for Peace - to go on this social mission to improve youth outcomes. Enjoyed the learning as we adapted the curriculum and implementation along the way.

Also to a fellow volunteer turned friend, LL, for the support to continue this initiative from the start when we started with the Youth Mental Well Being Network.

Kudos to our facilitators who showed up every Sat. Grateful for their time and commitment to actualize our vision and mission to positively impact youth!

This project attempted using a <human centred approach> where we targeted holistic development of the whole person in 4 domains through the use of play/sports. Reach out to me if our learnings or experiences might be of interest to you.

Super super grateful!

#wholepersondevelopment

#humancentredapproach

#playforresilience

#youthmentalwellbeing

#mentalwellness