“Everyone needs a fighter, someone to help them believe in themselves.” (Ben, volunteer tutor)

Image taken by Impart.

Benjamin Goh strongly believes in the importance of being an advocate for others. This motivates him as a member of Impart, where he tutors and serves on our curriculum development team. “I didn’t do too well in primary school,” he recalls. “What helped the most was knowing that there was always someone fighting for me.”

It is with this experience that Benjamin seeks to support others, through Impart. “When I was in JC, I suffered from depression. It was my tutors, my friends who supported me… who helped me to pull through, when I felt lonely and abandoned. I also want to be there for someone.”

As a tutor, Benjamin seeks to show care to his tutees, extending beyond their grade. He recalls how he once shared with a tutee an application essay he wrote, regarding his own experience of depression and mental illness. “After that moment of vulnerability, everything just changed,” he says, smiling. Through this shared vulnerability, there was a great change in his tutee’s attitude, where they grew motivation to care for others, and for their work as a student.

As Benjamin observes, the core challenges that youths face today remains unresolved by the high number of tutoring initiatives. “Youths today are bogged down with this consistent narrative where it’s always: “You need to get an A.” More than better educational resources, at-risk youth really need a stronger narrative, one that can tide them through the many challenges of life.

Impart seeks to empower youths. Through our tutoring and other initiatives, we hold to the firm belief that our youths can be “community assets”, the change-makers of the future, who will impact the people and communities around them for good.

With this vision, Benjamin labours to improve and develop the curriculum and tutoring strategies of Impart. “We continually develop our materials to better support tutors, empowering tutors to teach and create their own,” he explains. At Impart, we aim higher than better grades for our tutees. We invest in and empower our youths, that they too may grow to empower others.