ALVIN TJIA

Background information of the organisation:

I was assigned to work with HushTeabar, which is a social movement that champions social inclusion and mental wellness. Led by the Deaf and people recovering from mental health illness, this silent teabar hopes to bring self-care and inclusion to every workplace and community. Building an empathetic, resilient and inclusive society, one cup of tea at a time. Specifically, I was assigned to work on the "Hush@Workplace" aspect of the Hush movement which targets the working community as workplace stress and mental health issues are becoming more prevalent in society today. My job scope encompassed personally undergoing Hush@Workplace experience by bringing a refreshing session of experiential empathy and mental wellness to the workplace. These sessions aim to impact the growth and development of staff to build a healthier, happier and more inclusive workplace.

Background information on projects and tasks:

As part of the Hush@Workplace team, our projects and tasks were mainly outreach and marketing as the organisation did not have many engagements during the time we were assigned to them. Thus, the main purpose of our project was to advertise and market their products and the hush experience for the company. For outreach, me and my partner were tasked with researching and connecting with possible clients for the Hush@Workplace experience. For the marketing aspect of the project, our team was given three main tasks (deliverables):

(1) Update and improve on their outdated slides and moodboard, which is a document containing pictures and testimonials collected at various events that they have conducted.

(2) Conceptualise and film short videos that captured the essence of the company and markets their tea

(3) Schedule motivational and flashback posts on their social media to attract the attention of possible clients.

Elaboration / record of the activities done:

(1) Update and improve on their outdated slides and moodboard, which is a document containing pictures and testimonials collected at various events that they have conducted.

I worked with Chee Hong on the outreach aspect. We started doing research on possible clients which were narrowed down by the criteria given by our mentors - specifically, organisations that were invested in the wellness of their employees and big companies that were interested in people development. We were told to refer to companies that have been recognised for their excellence in the human resources aspect as that is an indication that they are invested in developing human capital and the wellness of their employees. Thus, we targeted companies on the Randstad list of "Best Companies in Singapore". we were also tasked to diversify our sources, so we did research on other award recipients including "Champions of Good" under Singapore’s "Company of good" movement. In the end, we managed to compile a list of 50+ possible clients for outreach. We then had to find the means of contact with these clients. This was particularly challenging as many organisations do not disclose this information so we had to take some organisations off the list as we could not find a way to contact them.

Elaboration / record of the activities done:

(2) Conceptualise and film short videos that captured the essence of the company and markets their tea

Our team was also tasked to renew the slides where some of the statistics were outdated. Thus, we had to do research on current statistics and change some of the testimonials to ones from more recent events. We were also tasked to edit the moodboard - to do this, we had to filter through testimonials gathered from recent events and add it to the moodboard. We also had to add images from recent events to it.

Additionally, we coordinated with Hush TeaBar's deaf employees to film a few short videos capturing the essence of the organisation and also to help them market their tea. For this, we had to think of how we were going to communicate the main ideas and film it in a way that captures the essence while also looking aesthetically pleasing. This turned out to be quite challenging, however we managed to finish filming in two days, which was surprising as we thought we would take a longer time to complete the filming.

Elaboration / record of the activities done:

(3) Schedule motivational and flashback posts on their social media to attract the attention of possible clients.

Lastly, our mentors wanted me and my partner to help post on their social media as a way to gain attention and also give a positive messages on social media. We were tasked to schedule motivational posts on Mondays and Wednesdays, and flashbacks to their previous events on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the rest of the year. We took pictures of cards with motivational quotes on them and edited pictures from previous events for the flashback posts. Additionally, we had to come up with specific captions for each post. Overall, this was very time consuming.

3 things I learnt:

Time management, throughout this experience, I have learnt that time management is very important. When we got our tasks from our mentor, we got multiple tasks at the same time. In order to do things in a productive way, I had to organise and create mental timetables to schedule what needed to be done and by when. This was so that I would not lose track of what i did and did not do and also ensure that i had enough time to complete all tasks by the deadline and not procrastinate or waste valuable time doing unnecessary things.

Communication was something else I learnt through this experience. Working with an organisation where deaf people work has really taught me the importance of communication. Even with our mentors, communication was key when trying to submit satisfactory work as we had to clarify with our mentors what they really wanted and whether they were supportive of what we were doing. Though clarifying is time-consuming, it was essential so that we would not have to redo our deliverables and waste time by doing that. Moreover, when interacting with the deaf when filming the videos and doing other things we had to really be mindful of communicating in a way that would not be misunderstood. Because of our limited sign language abilities, we have had to type out or act out what we were trying to convey.

One main aspect of this experience was learning empathy, when we first went to the organisation, one of the very first things that they brought us through was the hush experience where we learnt about the deaf and also the importance of mental health through those experiences, I really learnt a lot on the importance of empathy and the impact that small acts of kindness can have on other people both mentally and emotionally.

2 interesting aspects of your learning:

Getting to interact with the deaf was very interesting, one of the first things we did was to learn some simple sign language, which i found very fun and interesting as it was something that i had never seen in person or did any prior research on. We also learnt a lot about deaf culture, how the deaf interact with one another and how they interact with non deaf people which was also very rewarding and interesting.

Another interesting aspect of the experience was that the organisation as a whole does not stipulate its employees to have a 9am start and 5pm end; they manage their own time and work very well. I think this is something that we can learn from as students - when we are not in curriculum time, we can still manage our time and set realistic targets that we can meet.

1 takeaway for life:

I have found a new perspective on differently-abled persons and their place in society, I had always thought that differently-abled people should get our sympathy and we should help them. Throughout this attachment i have learnt that differently-abled people, for example the deaf, just want to be treated the same way as normal people do. they don’t want people to belittle them or look down them as they believe that they are normal. One very interesting thing that our mentors mentioned was that the deaf do not think of themselves as disabled as even though they can’t hear, they have their own unique language that not many normal people understand. Furthermore, they take pride in that. So I have learnt that we should treat everyone equally and not pity anyone for their "disabilities" as they do not need to be pitied. Just by changing our mindsets on the topic and changing the way we act towards them, we can make their day.