The Youth Are Rising - TYAR

This International Migrants Day, we ask President Halimah to conduct an independent review of the Singapore justice system in light of Parti Liyani’s case. The way Parti’s case was handled is not unique and many low income Singaporeans and migrants face similar barriers when they try to access justice.

You can show your solidarity by:
- reading the open letter;
- writing to the President or to your MPs; and/or
- co-signing the open letter as an organisation.

Links to the letter, templates to politicians, and the Google form are available at tinyurl.com/westandwithpartiliyani

we are working on putting together a publicly available resource containing counselling options for particularly vulnerable communities. these include, but are not limited to, those who are low-income, non English-speaking, non-citizens in low paying jobs (therefore not eligible for govt. subsidies), migrant workers, LGBTQ+ individuals, and individuals who are working through race-related traumas.

if you have any leads please link them below and we will add it to our list if it is a non-repeat! thank you in advance for helping to make mental health services more accessible x

in response to the impending end of the Circuit Breaker that hasn’t really proved to be an end at all, we have some reminders for you:

in conjunction with , the Singapore Association for Mental Health is hosting a panel discussion with 3 brilliant local writers 💛 we'll be there, and we hope to see you there too!

🌼 TRAUMA RECOVERY WRITING PROJECT 🌼

Hello friends! This February we will be collaborating with a group at the College of Alice & Peter Tan - CAPT to work on a WRITING PROJECT on the topic of TRAUMA RECOVERY. We are looking for participants who would like to explore writing as a form of healing or mode of therapy, and are currently working through anything trauma-related. Please DM if this interests you 🙂

Participants must be able to commit to 4 sessions of 1 hour each (dates not confirmed yet), and consent to publishing their work (anonymously is ok) in an anthology titled "Atelier of Healing: Poetry About Trauma and Recovery", edited by Desmond Kon and Eric Valles.

sharing is v appreciated, much love

happy Mental Health Awareness Month! remember to make some time for yourself (not just this month...!) and put your mental health first. self-care is half the battle won 💜

look out for more posts from us this month!

happy belated ! we are celebrating in the best way we thought possible: by debuting the collaborative poem our participants worked on during the Pilot Programme. the theme we settled on was self-image, and after some rounds of writing, editing, and discussing, this is what we came up with. love and due credits to our beautiful writers: Monica, Nigel Reetz, Serena, and Deesha.

hi everyone! the Pilot Programme was a success and we are now recruiting participants for our FIRST WORKSHOP SERIES.

it commences in the third week of April (exact date TBC) and will run for 4-5 weeks for 1 hour per week. it is FREE to join so please drop us an email ([email protected]) if you are interested or if you have questions/concerns! we'd love to chat with you :-)

do us a favour too and spread the word -- share this with your friends, family, and social networks. more details in the poster below. big love, and we can't wait to meet our next group :-)

TYAR’s Instagram page is up! Our handle is @/theyoutharerising.sg , and the link to our Instagram page can be found in our profile.

#2 in our Faces of TYAR Series:

hello! i am Deesha: a strong, independent, woman of colour with a deep love for literature. i have depression and generalised anxiety disorder, though thankfully these 'conditions' have been rearing their ugly head a lot less often these days. as a seasoned writer, i always thought it was strange that i never took to journaling as a coping mechanism. instead, i prefer to enter a pensive mode of introspection or read/watch TV if i'm not in the right space to do too much thinking. sleep is also a great escape.

in retrospect, the repression i felt as a result of mental well being (or lack thereof) was almost entirely self-imposed. prior to my diagnosis, i was a busy person. i was always on top of my game academically, i headed college groups and planned large-scale events, i tutored, i was emotionally available for my friends, and i had a good social life. people respected me and looked up to me, which was integral for my self-esteem. i held myself to impossible standards and was convinced that self-care was unproductive; that cutting back on responsibilities was a sign of weakness. overcoming it was really just a matter of taking a step outside my saturated view of the world, putting myself through what i thought i'd never live to see (taking breaks! deferring my graduation!), and coming out of it with the newfound perspective that hey, slowing down really isn't so bad.

i am immensely lucky to live and work (both at home and previously on campus) in a community that is wonderfully patient, open-minded, kind, and emotionally intelligent. but i know that this is not the case for everyone. my hope is that as a society we can adopt this disposition as a whole, and extend love to people both within and outside the walls of inpatient care. start small. most times, the greatest impact you can have is on your neighbour.

hello!!! this is a series on the faces of TYAR.

i'm Val, founder of The Youth Are Rising. this is a post that’s ALL about ✨M E✨. pls read

i began writing poetry when i was thirteen. i was very inspired by local poets like Cyril Wong, so much so that i even did a project on him LOL.

i suffer from psychotic disorders and personality disorders. my mental health journey started from when i was in primary school, but due to the lack of awareness and support, it was much later that i began to actively seek help. however, my mental health issues displayed themselves prominently in my secondary school years, where i acted out in anger and impulsivity and got into physical and verbal fights with both peers and teachers on a regular basis. i am sincerely remorseful for what i did then, but i know that i shouldnt bear the entire weight of my actions because society could have helped me more. i was a 😕 student, which led to my expulsion. as such, i haven't completed my secondary school education.

i think that my secondary school days were my darkest days. because i was notorious for using physical violence and aggression, schoolmates avoided me, out of both fear and spite. to my teachers, i was just another hopeless case. no one was there for me, and i had little support. over time, however, i've met people who are full of light and love. kindness came in the form of help from the right professionals, friends and family whose support never wavered, and DBT practically saved my life. i cant say that im "recovered" or "neurotypical", but i do think that the compassion poured onto my wounds has helped me come some way. i hope that the education system in Singapore does more to support students with mental health issues, that educators listen and take what students say seriously, and that judgment in schools lessen. i believe that a lot more can be done for youths, in terms of support for their mental health.
when in crises, i usually write. i switch around styles and genres a lot, but mostly just pen down whatever comes to mind. my journal is always with me!
ok kudos to you for reading this far. thank you for your support, and TYAR will smash the press while allowing words to heal.

stay tuned for more updates!!! fun stuff happening soon ;-)

and we’re done with the Pilot Programme!! we’d like to say a big thank you to all our lovely participants for their presence, open-mindedness, and poetry ❤️
we can’t wait to share what we came up with! (forgot to take a group photo so one of Deesha & Val will have to do)

keep watching this space for more updates on our subsequent writing workshops 🙂