EMPOWER Rakan

‘EMPOWER Rakan’ by Project ID is a capacity-building programme designed to upskill peer student leaders as advocates for mental health and well-being within their school communities. Through three dynamic phases, the programme fosters leadership, ownership, and empowerment. In Phase 1, students take charge of their growth with self-paced Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), equipping themselves with essential skills to support their peers. Next, in the Bootcamp phase, 100 selected participants connect with peers from other schools through an in-depth experiential upskilling camp to exchange insights and build a supportive network. Finally, these empowered students lead school-wide mental health initiatives, spreading awareness and addressing gaps to enhance the overall psychosocial well-being of the school communities.

Skill steps are highlighted to students in the three modules during Phase 1. Students are given ample opportunity to discuss and reflect on their own ability of the skill steps and times that they have used these skill steps in the past. Students are given information they need to know about the skill steps to learn about them, improve in them, and practise well. Students are given an activity they can complete after this, to then apply and practise the skill steps.