Community Heroes: More than 'How's your day?' — why helping youths spark deeper conversations at home matters to me

Heart.th is a ground-up initiative that aims to strengthen parent-child relationships by sparking conversations at home.

It began as an idea from my days as a history undergraduate at Nanyang Technological University.

I stayed in a campus hostel and spent time with my parents only on weekends. During meals, our conversations were often limited to the usual exchanges of “Have you eaten?” and “How’s your day?”.

I was deeply dissatisfied with these trivial conversations and longed to build deeper connections with my parents.

After some trial and error, I found that fun facts I learnt from my history modules were good conversation starters. It was especially true for topics about Singapore’s early years — during my parents’ childhood.

In 2021, I attended Focus on the Family’s 1825 programme for young people aged 18 to 25, where I met others who were passionate about creating stronger families.

They came from varying family backgrounds, but all had the common hope of seeing strong and united families thriving in Singapore.

Listening to their family experiences, I began reflecting on the important role that good communication plays — mainly in overcoming family conflicts and building strong relationships.

As part of the 1825 initiative, we were challenged to come up with a project for families.

I started to develop a plan for Heart.th, which would combine my interest in history with my new-found belief in quality communication.

I shared my idea with some friends I met through volunteering at Focus on the Family.

Their names are Samuel, Nicole, Jakin and Raymus, and they all also believed in the importance of quality family conversations.

We believe that every meaningful conversation between parent and child is likened to building a bridge that connects them, which can withstand challenges and conflicts that may arise.

The biggest contrast in familial relationships could be seen between my co-lead Samuel and I.

Unlike me, he had the most engaging and intriguing conversations with his parents over meals — indeed, eating together with them was one of his greatest joys.

Their conversations made him realise how alike he was to them and how connected their stories were.

He also found that through conversation, he could adopt the resilience shown by his parents to grow to be a stronger individual.

Drawing from our stories, we started Heart.th with the idea of creating booklets filled with conversation starters.

The idea came into fruition in early 2023, when we curated online activity books from scratch for students aged 11 to 15 that aimed to help them start conversations with their parents.

There were three activity books with different topics for families to choose from — namely food, phones and classroom.

We also included some fun Singapore history, and various activities and discussion questions for families to take part together.

My team added a personal touch to the books by including our own family's stories.

As we were looking for partners to support us in printing physical booklets, Samuel received a call from the Singapore Kindness Movement, wondering if he was doing any other projects.

With the opportunity presented by Singapore Kindness Movement's grant, I launched Heart.th as a ground-up movement in May 2023 with my four friends.

We later got the funding we needed to distribute more than 400 copies of our booklets to youth, parents, grandparents, educators and churches.

This year, we started monthly gatherings where about 10 young people passionate about family were equipped with tools to facilitate family conversations.

It was birthed from a need to go beyond the booklets and have physical gatherings to engage with the youth on a deeper level.

Each month covered a different topic on communication in families, and the young were encouraged to share their own family experiences and hopes for families in Singapore.

The founding team members took turns to facilitate these sessions, and the sessions were organised such that older youth volunteers aged 21 and above would help mentor and journey with the younger ones.

The usual turnout for these sessions would be around 10 people. Though that may seem too few, I believe that the stories that have been shared are not small in any way.

Some of the youth needed a safe space to talk about their families, and it has been a privilege to provide a space for them to share their thoughts authentically.

A common challenge faced by any ground-up movement would be balancing between being realistic and going “crazy” for our dreams.

It has been a delicate art — juggling work and not neglecting my own family time and being involved in our activities.

I’m still learning to be more disciplined in my time management by planning things in advance and communicating my need for support to loved ones.

Heart.th has been active for a year and I have found it an exceedingly fruitful experience so far.

I believe that even if your own family experience has not been ideal, you can be a builder of strong, thriving families with one open conversation at a time.

ABOUT THE WRITER:

Jasmine Lum, 27, is working in the heritage and the social sector, reaching out to underserved groups (ie. families in need, seniors, persons with disabilities) in Singapore. She comes from a family of four, where all their names start with the letter “J”. She enjoys curating old songs with her parents and brother and playing them over dinner.

If you have an experience to share or know someone who wishes to contribute to this series, write to voices [at] mediacorp.com.sg with your full name, address and phone number.