Ever wondered how young people can have a say in the laws and policies that affect them in Singapore? Here's child participation in action!

In 2025, we ran three youth consultations to get real talk from young people on violence, mental health, and staying safe online. Those voices are feeding into an alternative report¹ to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

But the conversations didn't end there.

Youths who had taken part in our previous engagements stepped up to take those insights further. Rather than diving into writing a formal report, the group explored a creative way of delivering their key messages to an audience.

Learning from the pros

Working with Checkpoint Theatre, the group learned how storytelling and performance can carry hard truths in a way reports alone can't. They caught Faith Ng's play "The Fourth Trimester" to see how theatre lands a message. Then came months of devising workshops with Adib Kosnan, one of Checkpoint's theatre practitioners, shaping what they wanted to say.

The result: an original forum theatre piece called "The People We Become." On 4 July 2026, they performed it at *SCAPE's Whitespace to a room full of the people who mattered to them: friends, family, and Singapore Children’s Society staff.

Unlike a regular play where you just watch, forum theatre invites you to respond to questions like,

During the showcase, Adib posed these questions to the audience, turning the performance into a live conversation instead of a one-way telling. That's exactly the point — getting people to reflect on real issues youths in Singapore face, not just hear about them.

Whose story is it?

The youths wrote the script themselves. They took what their peers shared in the 2025 youth consultations — about violence, mental health, and online safety — and turned it into scenes an audience could actually sit with. Not just facts on a page. Real moments.

Adib helped sharpen a few things along the way, but the story and every choice in it belonged to them.

And it wasn't just the writing — bringing it to life meant stepping into roles most of them had never tried before. Most had never set foot on a stage before this. That didn't stop anyone from finding their place in it. Some acted, some emceed, and a few also designed the posters and captions that invited people to come watch. Everyone had a hand in getting "The People We Become" in front of an audience.

Check the gallery below for highlights from the showcase and rehearsals!

What's next? The showcase may be over, but the work isn't. The group is now figuring out:

• What the final alternative report submission will look like

• How their message can reach others

• Plans for future showcases
  

Want to follow their journey? Find us on Instagram for updates.

¹Quick primer: The UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) sets out the rights every child should have — like protection from violence, mental health support, and safety online. Singapore has signed on, and has to report to the UN every few years on how it's doing. But governments don't always catch everything — so youth groups and young people can write their own version, called an alternative report, to fill in the gaps with real stories.

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With thanks to:

• Youth Writers/Cast/Emcees: Anders, Arif, Bolt, Clarice, Dhaanesh, Giselle, Hean Ling, Janine, Louis, Sharman, Xinyi, Yu Fan

• Event Helper: Daryl

• Workshop Partner: Checkpoint Theatre

• Event & Logistics Partner: *SCAPE

Check out "The People We Become" Showcase programme booklet below!