In 2018, when I attended the program, I didn’t see myself as an entrepreneur, but when I came back and I started because I had moved countries, I had come to Switzerland at that point
And I was wondering what lies next for me. And I, I found a gap in how the Swiss system, because English as a second language in, in Switzerland, Germany, German being http://www.maxloan.org/payday-loans-ky the first language, most of the English speaking community here feels that the, the level of English is not at par, that they would find in their home countries. That was one aspect of it. And the other aspect was that I always found too much emphasis on theory and very little emphasis on actually being creatively, expressing your voice.
So I thought what I could do was bring in a creative expression, being confident as a public speaker. That was the element that I wanted to add to this picture. Not just give them a great foundation in writing, but also being able to express those thoughts and ideas very clearly. And that’s where I started my, my educational initiative for creative writing and public speaking.
And the pandemic has really given me this opportunity because earlier sitting in Switzerland, I wouldn’t have had that chance to conduct what you will workshops, which has become possible now. So I, I think it’s, it’s just an amalgamation of all the things that have come together, my experience with IVLP my, the fact that the pandemic came and, or my, the possibility of opening up an offering workshops in Singapore.
Every day. I look forward to getting up and getting dressed to go for the new workshops or the new ideas that I’m gonna soak in today and learn not just from the people who are, who are going to conduct the workshop trainers, but also my cohort.
I think in the Zoom calls and Clubhouse, the power of voice is undeniable. Everybody recognizes how important it is to express yourself clearly and effectively. And as I touched upon earlier, when I was growing up, my father used to write newspaper headlines with some short details and ask me to share it in the morning assembly in my school.
As I mentioned a bit earlier that, at the end of the IVLP program, was just soaking in many possibilities in my mind
And my teacher was kind enough to give me the opportunity every time, every, every week, once a week, I used to get the opportunity to go ahead and present the news. And as, as a young girl, I developed that habit of going up on stage and presenting something. And later on debates, elocution and poetry, poetry competitions came by and I took part in them openly because I never had that barrier. My – at a young age, I was introduced to that and I never thought it was something difficult or I never, I never was stage shy.
But on the other hand, I feel that many children don’t get that opportunity because they have so many extracurricular activities to go for that these things do not take any kind of prominence, grasping and retaining information is what we are trying to make our children could add, which is, which is important. But I wouldn’t sideline the importance of being confident and articulate with the ideas. So at the same time, I want children to have an in, in the current generation. What we see is children are plugged into social justice, climate change, and they want to express their voice on all important topics. But what happens is that they, they do not have a chance to ponder and think over them or express what they want to do. And through my workshops, what I end to do is to get that, that moment of calm, where a structured writing activities there, where they think about what what’s happening around them and give them different writing prompts to go through so that they can actually think what they are passionate about and also have the right medium of expression.