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Congratulations to MTC 2 Cohort 3 for completing the course! May this graduation not be the end of your learning journey but the start of it instead. Over the past few years, Make The Change, in partnership with Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), has been running workshops online for a few groups of refugees. The refugees involved are mostly based in Indonesia and Thailand. The cohort that just graduated from the programme is the third cohort, and the fourth cohort will be starting sometime in August. The most recent graduating batch just had their virtual graduation ceremony on the 13th of June. Split into two groups, the batch was enrolled in Digital Skills for Businesses and Digital Skills for Design, both under the foundational level. The number of graduates is 39 and 31 respectively. Each programme consists of 5 modules. Under Digital Skill for Business, the modules were Digital marketing, Social Media marketing, Essential Visual Communication for Marketers, Content Curation with Existing App, and Module Recap Summary. Digital Skills for Design on the hand covered Visual Communication and Typography, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Copywriting (English), and Portfolio Building. The main objective of the programmes is to allow the refugees to up-skill themselves. They then will be exposed to opportunities to work on projects that are done remotely. Moving forward, MTC aims to include these refugees as freelance talents on our inclusive hiring portal, Younite.

On this episode of our Conversation of Change we talked to Erik Croswell, the founder of Bridge City Media a creative video production based in Portland. They are using video production to create impact and create awareness for social causes. Learn their story and be inspired

Written by Ethan, Heinrich and Ervin from Dunearn Secondary School From 7th of November to the 11th, we interned at Make the Change, a social enterprise that empowers the community through creative services and change maker programmes. Although it was only for a week, we did gain some experiences and takeaways. On the first day of work to the end of the work internship, we had to familiarise myself with some apps such as Google Sheets, Google Documents. Most of which are not really used in schools that often. Since this internship was only for a week, we were not given big projects to work on. Instead, we were given work such as organising documents, reviewing slides. Other than assignments, we also got to learn more about social enterprises; how they work and what kind of impact they have on the community. On some days, we had to work at home, which really taught me to be independent, as we are just assigned work to do at home with no one to really overlook or help me with. The task of reviewing slides helped us acquire analytical and marketing skills through looking through the slides searching for mistakes or thinking of improvements that can be made to help make it interesting for the target audience. Additionally, through the slides, we also grasped presentation skills, as we to look through the slides and were able to see how a slide would be presented. Other than that, since the internship was only for a short while, we did not get a substantial amount of work experience to apply what we have learnt, but it was work experience nonetheless. We managed to experience the working life schedule or something along those lines. Meeting new people through the internship was also an interesting experience, especially when they are also interns. All in all, we had an extremely eye-opening experience, where we were exposed to many new opportunities. We acquired new skills, met new people, and gained a better understanding of how social enterprises work. Definitely would look forward to attending more internships to broaden my perspective.

Earlier this year, our Make The Change team went on a 3-day trip to Indonesia to visit the refugees from the Refugee Learning Centers at Bogor. As part of our CSR project, we funded a 3-day training session to equip the refugees with digital marketing skills. With the job market booming, there has been a rise in demand for digital marketers – this has made digital marketing an essential and in demand skill, especially for companies looking to expand their brand. As refugees are not allowed to work in the country they have sought refuge in, equipping them with an up and coming skill can give them opportunities to find employment online as digital marketers only require a laptop to get the job done. With employment, the refugees can send their children to schools and reduce their dependence on their families in their home countries for monetary support. To provide professional training lessons for them, this project was done in collaboration with MAD School, in which the trainers from MAD have kindly volunteered their time to conduct a 3 day workshop for 45 refugees at Hope Learning Center. On day 1 of the workshop, the trainers taught the refugees all about digital marketing, which includes SEO, Google algorithms, keywords planning and backlinks. Even though it was something new to the refugees, they still put in their utmost effort to digest the information given and readily asked questions to clarify doubts. Picture credits: M.A.D School Day 2 was about social media marketing! The trainers from MAD taught them how to run ads on Facebook to reach out to a larger audience as well as how to analyse and measure metrics that would give them an overview of their social media marketing performance. Similar to day 1, the refugees were eager and fast learners as they were to quickly adapt to the new terms introduced. On the last day, content marketing was introduced to them. Not only did they learn how to create blogs and videos, they also learnt how to develop their self branding. This is especially important for the refugees as having a well curated personal branding can open up much more employment opportunities as well as leave a lasting impression on their potential employers. At the end of the 3 day training, we were pleased to see that the refugees’ hard work had paid off as approximately 5 of them were ready for employment and they were selected for “Digital Marketing job placement” within 2 months. Make The Change also hired 1 full timer and 2 interns to become country representatives to market MTC services and MAD School courses to the Indonesia market. There were approximately 20 refugees that had to undergo further training in Digital Marketing before they can be employed, but we are confident that they will become qualified digital marketers in no time! Picture credits: M.A.D School There’s more! Make The Change’s efforts does not stop there. Before flying off to Indonesia, our team had reached out to their network of family and friends to seek for donations. We have raised a total of S$3,112 to be donated to 3 refugee learning centers which will fund the students’ learning materials as well as cover the teachers’ and center’s expenses. We are extremely grateful to all of our donors, including MAD School, for making this donation a purposeful and meaningful one. Together with MAD School, Make The Change will continue to support the refugees and equip them with digital marketing skills so that they can find employment. We strongly believe that by giving them a marketable and sustainable skill set, the refugees are able to find footing in the job market and become a valuable asset to society. As the saying goes, “We rise by lifting others”, we hope that we were able to give them leverage to uplift themselves.

Competition may be one of the most contentious and misunderstood topics in education. Should we allow our students to actively compete and participate in Youth Competitions? The dilemma is that while competitions certainly create winners, and allow the select few to revel in the flory of victory, in equal measure there definitely will be students who will have to deal with the disappointment of defeat. It is hard to know what to believe when it comes to competitions in education because there is so much misinformation and seemingly conflicting research studies on the topic. While we do recognize that there are potential detriments from engaging youth to participate in competitions, we have come to the conclusion that overall, the pros do outweigh the cons, especially when Healthy Competition is involved. Thus, we're going to give a brief overview of a few benefits to the youth for joining and actively participating in competitions. 1. Improving Teamwork and Collaboration Most team-based educational competitions require students to take on challenging tasks that require good communication, collaboration, and teamwork. The fact that they are striving to achieve such a challenging task together, makes them work harder at understanding their specific skills, and how to work well with one another. The fact that they know other teams are aiming to achieve the same goals, goes a long way in motivating the teams to become more cohesive, and better collaborators. 2. Enhancing Social and Emotional Learning Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is a complex area of development for students and the educators trying to help them. There are so many factors at play here it is sometimes difficult to determine what will have an impact, and if the same interventions will have the same impacts on all students. Through competitions students can gain better understanding of how to deal with conflicting opinions and ideas. They can learn how to collaborate with widely differing personalities. They can learn to manage subjectivity in their lives. And they can learn to better gauge and evaluate risks. 3. Facilitating Growth Mindsets By having a growth mindset, we constantly look for ways to improve ourselves, and this leads to increased opportunity in our careers and personal lives. Learning to have a growth mindset is not something that is taught in school. We can gain this skill by conducting small iterations and repeatedly exploring improvement in the tasks we take on. Competitions set a framework for practicing and facilitating a growth mindset for students. They give benchmarks upon which we can base our improvements, and put value on the challenge of improving. 4. Enhancing Beneficial Peer Comparisons Students are constantly comparing themselves to their peers. This is a fact of life that we cannot stop. Comparison is built into human nature. It is a natural way of evaluating how we're doing on the things that matter to us. What we can change are the items on which we compare ourselves. When well-designed, competitions can help students move towards these beneficial peer comparisons and place them in a similar high regard along with other social status comparisons. 5. Building Mental Toughness Persistence, resiliency, and grit are all components of Mental Toughness. These valuable real-world skills come in handy across every area of our careers and lives. We must know how to bend and not break under pressure. We must learn how to handle stressful, competitive situations in life. Youth Competitions ensure that students will not be put in these situations for the first time when they jump into their jobs. These are just a few of the broad spectrum of benefits that students can achieve through Youth Competitions. It is critical that educators, coaches, parents, and competition organizers understand the best-practices in executing competition design in ways to ensure these benefits are realized. On a side note, if you're keen on venturing out of your comfort zone and joining a Youth Competition to challenge yourself, our DFG Youth Competition is now open for all students to join! Click here to find out more, and to register for the competition. Take the Chance, and Make the Change in your life by joining us today!

Recently, Make The Change's very own Design For Good (DFG) initiative has been featured in an article on the Business Times on Thursday, March 25, 2021. The "Big Four Christmas Charity Bazaar" held in December 2020 and hosted by Fairmarch, featured Ernst & Young, Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers which are the 4 top competitors in the arena of delivering accounting and other professional services. However, they decided to collaborate together for this initiative, and combine their efforts for Social Good. This event that brought them together for the first time gathered a total of 43 merchants, which included social enterprises serving a range of beneficiaries. Here is where Design For Good came into the picture. We had a range of tote bags, pouches and carpets designed by our beneficiaries such as Krafters to offer for sale. Those sold like hot cakes on a cold day, and eventually set a splendid new revenue record for DFG. Our very own Changemaker extraordinaire, Pedro Aguirre, was interviewed by the Business Times and said: "Through the event, we made a few thousand dollars within a week for our three main beneficiaries - marginalised women, youth at risk and those with disabilities." Like most other non-profit organisations, the coronavirus pandemic made it difficult for MTC and other charities to hold physical fund-raising activities due to social distancing measures. Therefore, it can be said that the bazaar hosted by Fairmarch came at an opportune time. We shall look forward to the bazaar again in December 2021. In the meantime, let's all do our part to Take The Chance and Make The Change by creating an Impact in the community!

Congratulations to the winners of the MTC Design For Good Youth Competition! They’ve created amazing posters promoting the importance of digital and media literacy 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Best of the Show: Ong Yeong En Sheena (Woodlands Ring Secondary School) Most Creative: Sydney Siow, Zhao Xinqi, Tan Yitong (Nanyang Girls’ High School) Best Craftsmanship: Audrey Lim Huei-Li, Ainsley Tan Nuan Leng (Raffles Girls' School (Secondary)) Best Entry for Primary Schools: Yeo Rui En Symphony (Clementi Primary) Commendation: Yalenchka Alya Putri (Ngee Ann Secondary School) Sebastian Jerome Chin Long Yee (St Joseph’s institution) Samantha Lim Hui En & Alice Soh Wenyi (Paya Lebar Methodist Girls' School) Rachel Tan Qiao Hui (Pasir Ris Secondary School) Nur Nadrah Binte Zainol (Ngee Ann Secondary) Made Nasatya Tristan Wirya (Meridian Secondary) Goh Min Xuan (Nanyang Girls’ High School) To find out more about more about the competition, go to https://www.makethechange.sg/youthcompetition

Congratulations to the winners of the MTC Design For Good Youth Competition! Amazing posters have been created to promote the importance of digital and media literacy 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Best of the Show: Cayrin Ng (CHIJ Toa Payoh Secondary School) Most Creative: Nasatya Tristan Wirya (Meridian Secondary School) Best Craftsmanship: Canda Jaedan Luis Bernabe (Meridian Secondary School) Commendation: Lee Mei Xian, Sherry & Christine Tsoi (CHIJ St Theresa's Convent) Lee Jun Ze (Serangoon Garden Secondary School) Khoo Ying Ru Charisse (Ngee Ann Secondary School) Ediripalage Ruth Shamen Randeniya & Hermione Isabelle Choo Qi & Kylie Koh (CHIJ St Theresa's Convent) To find out more about more about the competition, go to https://www.makethechange.sg/youthcompetition

Written by Kait Goh from Cedar Girls' Secondary School After ending the academic year, I wanted to spend my holidays doing something meaningful and make a difference in society, as well as have the experience of what it would be like to work in an office job together with other students from different schools and my mentors. An internship at Make The Change fulfils all. My 1 month internship at Make The Change provided me with the opportunity to be active in the community and the chance to be more involved as well as learn to further empathise with different communities, for example, people who have disabilities. Through this opportunity, the internship allowed me to understand the simple act of giving back to society that many of us tend to forget in our fast-paced lives. I came to realise that there are various simple yet impactful methods to extend a helping hand to the less fortunate. As a Social Enterprise that is an integrated creative agency that provides digital marketing, advertising, and design services for corporates and NGOs, I was also exposed to entrepreneurship marketing and design skills, which I otherwise would not have a chance to venture into. I definitely also highly value the friendly and supportive working environment where I was always patiently guided by my mentors whenever I had questions about anything regarding the tasks I was given. They were always flexible with deadlines so I did not have to rush anything and could take my time to efficiently and effectively complete what I had to do. They also always made sure that I could clearly grasp the purpose of the activities as well as gain values and skills from them. I truly thank them for their support and guidance at all times. It was an excellent chance to learn about and comprehend the company's culture better as well as gain an insightful and valuable hands-on experience at an office job. I also benefited from being allowed to listen in on meetings and have genuinely enjoyed working together with my colleagues and the friendships made with interns that I got to work with along the way during my time interning at Make The Change. All things considered, I am truly appreciative for this internship opportunity which allowed me to grow not only as a person, but professionally through the use of both soft and hard skills.

The issue revolving around manpower crunch has been persistent and will continue to pose a problem to firms. Apart from leveraging on improved technology, firms must innovate and rethink their strategies not only to retain talent but also to hiring practices. There are countless case studies and research conducted to prove the extensive benefits of having a diverse and inclusive workforce. These benefits include having a higher retention rate, a larger pool for innovative and creative solutions, and enhancing the organization’s culture and brand reputation. However, 7 in 10 Singapore firms still have yet to look into updating their diversity and inclusion policies. What’s holding your Organisation back? Identifying and addressing the underlying concerns of key stakeholders is critical for there to be progress with regard to practicing Including Hiring. Through our interviews with representatives from over 23 organisations, including MNCs such as BT Singapore Pte Ltd, Standard Chartered Bank, and Palo I.T, firms highlighted several key points about Inclusive Hiring. 1. Not enough conversation around the issue A huge impact often starts small. On a micro level, employees play a crucial part in championing change. Creating the buzz and raising the topic at organisational meetings, town halls are ideal places for these conversations to start. 2. No catalyst to ignite change within the Organisation While there has been a gradual shift in perceptions towards hiring inclusively, there are still many layers and hierarchies when it comes to making business decisions or changing organisational policies. We recognise the difficulties HR practitioners, managers, and even day-to-day employers face when pushing for change. Thus, the leaders and top management need to inculcate a strong inclusive culture. 3. A huge amount of resources are needed to create structural change As an organization looking to hire inclusively, organisations believe there are many constraints and factors hindering them from changing their hiring practices. These include incurring high costs to change the infrastructure to make the working environment more inclusive, existing employees are not fully trained to communicate with inclusive talents. However, there are many existing grants and Government interventions to support businesses in their Inclusive Hiring Journey. What’s next? Reconfiguring how we approach these challenges is thus the key to addressing these challenges. Find out more here.

In the month of October, Make The Change in Collaboration with raiSE Singapore organised a workshop on inclusive hiring. Titled ‘Inclusive Hiring Workshop for Business Growth’, the workshop was geared towards corporates to gain more awareness as well as understanding the benefits of inclusive hiring to a company. During the event, guest speakers from companies who have incorporated Inclusive Talents into their organization were invited to share their experience. They shared their considerations along with some tips that can be implemented for others who are keen to start the journey of inclusive hiring in their own company . An inclusive talent also joined the event and talked about his perspective in trying to get employed and adapting into the workplace he is currently in. The session ended with a consultation session where specific enquiries were raised on different stages of how to implement inclusive hiring to each organisation. What’s Next? If you’re interested in joining a similar session or would like to know more about inclusive hiring, do leave us an enquiry here. You can also access the Inclusive Hiring Toolkit by raiSE Singapore here. The toolkit is developed by raiSE to help organisations transform their business, culture and work practices by creating an inclusive workplace through inclusive hiring. To empower you to take a step towards celebrating diversity and embracing inclusivity, the toolkit package contains a guidebook and an exclusive podcast by a Social Enterprise, Make the Change, featuring Ham Creations, an Inclusive Hiring advocate

Engagement you can see, results you can measure. Edpuzzle presents you opportunities to engage students in interactive assignments provided for them to participate in, and even provides instant analytics to help you differentiate your teaching and make grading effortless, allowing you to give feedback to your students instantly as well. Furthermore, Edpuzzle provides you with ready-to-go, standards-aligned lessons created by their team of expert teachers, for you to use in lessons, and you can assign the video lessons as homework for students to run through at their own pace after introducing it in class. Afterwards, you can assess their understanding with questions in the video. Edpuzzle also provides a Live Mode, which allows you to project a video lesson for your whole class while students answer in real time on their own devices. With Edpuzzle’s Live Mode, students are able to experience a virtual field trip through the use of a 360 video and you can focus on certain elements for a class conversation. With Edpuzzle, you will be able to further empower your students to take an active role in their learning with the interactive video lessons provided to spark creativity and curiosity in them, enhancing your lessons meaningfully. Do register your interest here !