Yale-NUS students participate in the ASEAN Social Impact Program 2024
Award-wining pitch focuses on introducing mandatory consent training among undergraduates
Two Yale-NUS students, Darren Teo and Jeff Collado (both from Class of 2025), participated in the ASEAN Social Impact Program 2024 (ASIP) held from 30 May to 2 June. Hosted at Fulbright University Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City, ASIP convened 100 youths from universities across Southeast Asia to explore solutions that can tackle pressing social issues. This year, the theme was “Good Health and Wellbeing”, with teams receiving interactive training in health advocacy, creative thinking, and project management to develop their pitch proposals.
As part of the programme, Jeff and his team proposed a campaign on toilet hygiene to tackle the issue of bathroom cleanliness in Vietnam’s public schools, while Darren and his team proposed a winning idea on introducing mandatory consent training among undergraduates in Vietnam. As the winning project, Darren and his team will receive funding of up to US$10,000 to bring their plans to life.
“My project is about providing consent and sexual education to Vietnamese undergraduates. This was inspired largely by Yale-NUS’ own consent education framework, which I found really enlightening in Orientation,” Darren shared.
He also used his experience as a Kingfisher for Consent (KFC) peer-educator at Yale-NUS to help develop the project. “I believe that KFC has a really unique and important place on campus advocating for consent and challenging sexual violence. I was able to take many of the theoretical ideas and practical experiences from organising events at KFC and apply them in ASIP 2024,” he shared.
To help teams with their pitches, the programme also provided opportunities to go on site visits, engage with industry experts, and explore pertinent locations. Darren’s team visited two mental health providers in Ho Chi Minh City to learn more about their facilities and the difficulties that the organisations faced. “The site visits shed light on important logistical challenges and stigmas that our project would inevitably face. It was heartening to meet these changemakers and feel the passion and dedication they displayed towards their projects,” he added.
Valuable knowledge and skills were key takeaways from ASIP for our students. “ASIP was a great chance to interact with people of different cultures and backgrounds and see social change in varied contexts,” Darren said. As this was his first time to Ho Chi Minh City, he was also glad for the opportunity to explore the city and its history.
In the future, Darren’s ASIP 2024 team plans to continue meeting to implement their project. “The project my team hopes to implement will require us to negotiate with various stakeholders and partners, and I think the amount of effort required for that is often understated. During the programme, the organisers constantly stressed that such operational details — not just the substance of the ideas — would distinguish a wininng idea from the rest. I thought that was a valuable lesson to take away,” he explained.
We look forward to seeing the project come to life soon!
