Hello! Were you there for the greatest event last weekend?! And if we had not been that clear enough the past 15 blog posts about what the greatest event was…you need to stop right now and re-read all our blog posts starting from the first. But if you know that we are referring to Unspoken, The Voice Within…we’re proud of you and you may carry on reading whatever’s below.
So back to the question, “Were you there?”
Yes? Wonderful for you! This blog post shall serve as a reminiscent platform to relive those sweet memories that you had from our event.
No? Tsk…urghh…but it’s okie, this blog post shall present you everything you needed to know about what happened during Unspoken, which you missed. ☹
Let’s begin! Get ready, there would be more photos than words in this featured blog post!
After staying till close to midnight on Saturday to set-up the experiential and exhibition booths, we had to report to the Theatre For the Arts (TFA) at 8:30am the next day (don’t bother counting the hours of sleep we had). When we arrived, some of us helped to tidy up the loose ends such as preparing the nametags for all our lovely volunteers. NYP Makeup Artistry also came down early to do up the makeup for all the drama casts.
The Sponsorship committee placed all the goodie bags on the seats.
The Logistics committee went to arrange the stage props for a smoother stage management during the drama. Testing the microphone sound systems and stage lightings was also one of their priorities as we had to prepare for the final drama rehearsal.
At 9:00am, all the casts gathered to rehearse their scenes once more while the remaining Unspoken committee members helped with setting up the registration and photo booth.
Saras commended us for having done our best rehearsal so far with quality acting and the least amount of technical difficulties. Concurrently, the programme committee held a quick briefing for the volunteers. It could easily be a frantic mess as we anticipate the doors to be opened to the public. Many things ought to be done so our limited manpower had to be managed! What to do? The Programme committee had done up a duty list earlier and used the Airtable app for our Unspoken committee to receive a personalised schedule of their own duties.
10:45am, we promptly gathered to our Social Work classroom, K502, for a mass briefing with the whole Unspoken committee by the Overall ICs, Gen and Huda! We ran through the program flow and other important reminders once more. When the doors will be open? When will the show start? What is expected of the casts when they’re backstage? The briefing answered these questions and we were sent off with a pep talk.
We were all ready! We quickly went down to TFA by noon to open the doors! Registration was supposed to start early, but there were only a handful of guests around. We then decided to start registration a little later.
1:00pm hits. Doors open. People stream in. This is the moment we have been waiting for. Members of the public are coming through the doors, probably the first event many of us have organised at such a large scale. Unspoken is now live!
Registration started. Participants flipped out their touchscreens and opened their e-ticket attachment from their emails to show it to our friendly coursemates stationed at the registration booth. They checked the unique reference number on your e-ticket to mark your attendance, greeting participants a warm welcome to our event with the programme booklet.
Upon registration, our event participants are free to explore the experiential learning and exhibition booths in the function room. Let’s look at what awaits everyone who took their first step into the room:
When one enters, they would be quick to spot a whole row of exhibition boards aligned across the middle of the room. These boards offer research-based accurate information on the top three most prevalent mental illnesses among youth in Singapore: Depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder(OCD) and Anxiety. We decided to explore more on the different types of anxiety, hence there were more boards that expound on the common 3 types: Generalised Anxiety Disorder(GAD), Social Anxiety and Panic.
These information boards cover the definition and symptomatic nature of each mental illness. It features personal testimonies of survivors, who went through these illnesses themselves, struggled and received help. We even included some boards to debunk the myths and false stigma that revolves around mental illnesses. Take for example, it is commonly believed that specific situations trigger panic attacks. But that is not true; fact of the matter is that panic attacks come unexpectedly without warning. Bet you didn’t know about that! Lastly, we included information on how one can practice self-care or approach a loved one who also may be struggling with a mental illness.
A table of books were also placed next to these boards. What are the books about, you ask? Well… they were the books our Year 3 seniors had designed as one of their deliverables for their FYP project. Their project, enlightens, also seeks to champion awareness on mental health issues. They believed dancing would do the trick and interestingly, it did. If you have collected these books, we hope you find the resources and self-care activities from the book useful and therapeutic.
We, as millennial students, understand how reading can often be a bore (even our lecturers know this). Therefore, if the exhibition boards don’t really seem to captivate your interest, we hoped that our experiential learning booths would have a greater appeal!
There were a total of 3 experiential booths (Depression, Anxiety, OCD), having 3 stations for participants to sit in and immerse themselves into the experience. The experiential learning booths seek to provide you an interactive and personal touch into the unspoken struggle within the minds of someone struggling with a mental illness. At each station, participants were tasked to complete a set of activity while listening to a recorded audio through noise-cancelling headphones. The audio is a verbal recording of the thoughts someone with the respective mental illness may have when doing the same activity. You hear them. You struggle with them. You learn how to care for them. Instruction sheets were provided to brief participants on what to do. After completing the activity and audio recording, participants flip over the instruction sheet to read the debriefing notes. These notes seek to explain more about the mental illness and how loved ones could care for them, being sensitive to their needs. Here is a quick snapshot of each booth.
For the depression booth, participants are to listen to the audio and read the writings written on a board. These writings are harmful or unhelpful statements commonly made by others in response to someone’s depressive episode. They then flip over the board to read another set of writings. The new set of writings were words of encouragement or support that one with depression needs to hear from his/her loved ones. Use these statements instead to support someone you suspect is going through depression.
The next booth is anxiety. The task is simple. Follow the given sequence, on the instruction sheet, when packing your school bag. Pencil case first. Umbrella second. Lunchbox third. Okay unpack. Now pack your books first. Water bottle second. Pencil case third. All is well? Okay. Repeat. The audio gradually quickens and intensifies. You would feel the rush. The pressure. Pack. Faster. Heart is thumping. You need to go. Umbrella first. Books second. Water bottle third. It is not easy to live with anxiety, participants would soon discover.
The last booth is OCD. Some often hold the misconception that OCD is just being a perfectionist. Just wash your hands. Just keep things neat. Just be clean, tidy and organised. What more is there? No. When you participate in this booth, you would learn that OCD goes beyond being fussy over tidiness. OCD is when your behaviours are compulsive, irresistibly urged, affecting your daily living. For this booth, you are tasked to arrange a giant stack of books in alphabetical order. Forget the order? Sure, you have to recite your alphabets repeatedly until all your books are neatly arranged. A perfectionist is only mildly disturbed when the books are not kept properly, but someone with OCD, no, he cannot carry on with any other activities at ease unless he is convinced that the books are arranged in certain way. This was the most interesting and challenging booth as feedbacked by the participants.
As these activities may be distressing or discomforting to certain individuals, we created a safe space for you to relax and process through your thoughts if you need rest and personal time. Introducing the Calm Area!
We believe in providing every participant a quality experience in their discovery to learn more about mental health and its illnesses. However, we must go beyond. Knowledge must translate into practical action. After imparting much knowledge and understanding on mental illnesses through these booths, we ask, “What can you do on your part to remove stigma and promote care for the mental health community?”
To rally participants to take active steps toward what they have learnt, we have a Support Board, which we proudly call “Small Actions, Big Impact”! This is a simple booth for you to write down what you would personally want to say or do for anyone who is struggling with a mental illness.
Every action counts. Every word spoken is powerful. They matter. And who knows, even the simplest things may become the key reasons why they want to push on. So, write on! These cards would be given to Clarity for any of their clients to take a read! Psst…this support board also acts as a beautiful backdrop for a group photo!
Talking about photos…we had our very own designated photo booth right at the front of the lobby. It is most probably the first thing you would see upon entering our event. Fire away and take Insta-worthy shots! Oh…and about Instagram! Participants (actually we bugged our friends) helped to support out #Xstigma campaign by taking a boomerang of themselves signing an X.
Pretty cool! The backdrop is also used by the drama casts’ family members and friends for a group photo after the drama performance. With so many props to choose, participants were spoiled with choices!
Now, to our Unspoken event’s main highlight…the drama production!
We nearly had a full house for both the matinee and evening shows! Everyone was sitting down and ready to watch our drama performance. Many of the audience were professionals, parents, friends, and of course, the youths we outreached through publicity. Did we mention you get a free goodie bag when you found a seat? Amazing, isn’t it?! We even had many participants who walked in without tickets and this was great news as we had some extra seats left for them! They get to watch the drama! Yay!
While you were comfortably seated, the casts were rehearsing their lines once more and preparing for the cue to begin.
Saras gave us the cue to begin and off we go! The drama began and it is at this moment, all our hard work in the previous weeks’ rehearsals had to pay off! We all gave our best!
Many of the audiences laughed at the funny scenes, teared when Shane was speaking in a monologue, and trembled in fear when the black voices doomed his mind.
The dark voices had won. Shane’s world began crumbling down. All hope was loss.
Or was it?
At a critical point in the drama’s narrative, the storyline was interrupted. “This isn’t the perfect ending, is it?” the narrator probed the audience. “How do you think you can make a change in Shane’s life”
At that moment, Shane’s friends and family walked towards the centre of the stage with carboard puzzles. Breaking the fourth wall, we began the audience interaction scene by walking down the stage with the puzzle pieces, looking for someone among the audience who wanted to write down what they could have said or done as Shane’s friend or family member. We incorporated their inputs into Shane’s recovery process.
But it does not end there, the puzzle piece scene precedes a panel discussion! After Todd left the stage wondering how held he could have helped Shane, a panel discussion began with various professionals from the field coming forward to answer any questions that the audience may have. It was highly interactive and we did notice how many raised their hands to ask their questions. These questions include asking where to seek help, how to approach a suicidal friend, whether gender had an influence on one’s mental illness and how one can use art therapy for self-care. The bubbling audience were quick in asking insightful questions and many of them found the panel discussion informative.
The panel discussion ended and we resumed the drama production. The white voices, stronger than before, had defeated the black voices in a heated battle within the mind. It was not easy for Shane to recover, but he took things a step at a time. We concluded our drama by sharing our heartfelt appreciation to everybody who made Unspoken possible and featuring an original song composition written by the Unspoken band members! Social Workers have talent okayyy! We took a bow and left the stage.
And that was the end of…just the matinee show (haha gotcha! You really did believe that our event was over just like that?) Nope.
Before the evening show begin at 6:00pm, we had lunch. After eating a box of delicious nasi lemak, some went to facilitate the booths in the function room while the rest went to reset the stage in preparation for the next run. Some of the event documenters went around interviewing participants on how they felt about our event and how it could be better improved.
The second show began…and once again, we received an arousing celebratory response at the final credits of our drama! We collected all the evaluation forms filled after both shows and compiled them at a later date.
Our entire event was successful and we were overfilled with joy at the overwhelming positive responses given to us by the audience (and probably also because the event is over and we can finally get some beauty sleep).
The drama ended. We took a group photo. We went around to greet the guests, facilitate the booths and to slowly pack up. Everything was quick and efficient as Gen and Huda delegated us duties to wrap up the event, mostly, we were to bring the logistics back to it’s rightful place. With aching muscles and makeup still on the casts’ faces, we diligently helped to keep everything back.
Now that it all has come to a wrap, some of our committee members went to chat about how the event had been while some just dozed off on the floor. It had been a tiring day indeed. That is not end of our day yet, there is just one last thing:
Yes…that’s right! It is what you think it is (unless you are thinking of a potato, then you’re wrong)! PIZZASSS! Saras bought pizzas for everybody, how wonderful was that!! What a great way to end our event, fed full and kept happy. It was nothing short of precious (and silly) conversations among the committee members about the joys and sorrows that happened throughout the event. This is it. Unspoken is over! Thank you Saras for feeding us a sumptuous meal before we go back home.
Unspoken was an event that we are proud to call a success even though it may tire us to the bones when organising it (just look at our OICs). Still, we could say with confidence: It was worth it!
