Synopsis: Every second and fourth Friday of the month, The Straits Times' Insight editor Grace Ho takes a hard look at political and social issues of the day with her expert guests.

December 9 marks the official launch of Mentoring SG, the national mentoring movement. Themed ‘Standing on the shoulders of Giants', this movement believes that every youth should have the opportunity to grow together with mentors who care.

In this episode, Grace looks at what it takes to be a mentor, how others have done it, and how more youths can be encouraged to step forward to be mentors. In the studio with her are Mr Chong Leong Fatt, deputy principal, Institute of Technical Education (ITE) College Central; Mr Tan Chung Hao, an ITE alumni who was mentored during his school days there and has gone on to mentor others; and Ms Yvonne Kong, a career futurist and workforce developer who works in a local university. 

This episode is brought to you by the National Youth Council, in support of Forward Singapore: https://mentoring.sg/

Highlights (click/tap above):

2:10 How Chong Chung Hao and Leong Fatt find time to mentor others in spite of their busy schedules

9:30 How more youths can be encouraged to step forward to be mentors for ITE students, and the challenges they face

12:32 How Yvonne began her mentoring journey as a working professional

13:57 Yvonne has mentored people aged 13-60; are different skills needed to mentor people of different ages?

16:40 Why companies should be more outward-looking and embrace mentoring, even if it does not lead to immediate internal benefits

18:12 How companies can step out as a department or mentoring group, increase employee engagement through mentoring

19:10 Why mentoring is more important than ever since the pandemic, and how people can get started on the Mentoring.sg movement

Listen to Pt 2: Listen to 2 singles react to new youth poll on public housing priorities - https://str.sg/wtPm

Listen to Pt 3: Listen to a young married couple reacting to new youth poll on public housing priorities - https://str.sg/wtPW

Listen to Pt 4: How financially literate are Singapore’s youth? - https://str.sg/ikqz

More on:

Mentoring first steps through Mentoring SG: https://mentoring.sg/mentoring-culture

Mentoring opportunities: https://mentoringsg.com/

National Youth Council: https://www.nyc.gov.sg/

Forward Singapore: https://www.forwardsingapore.gov.sg/

Produced by: Grace Ho (graceho@sph.com.sg), Ernest Luis and Hadyu Rahim

Edited by: Hadyu Rahim

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