Diving Deeper into Youth Mental Well-Being

Li Foundation had the honour of hosting Mr Pang Sze Khai, founder and principal of Octava Foundation and his team to introduce both organisations’ work and exchanging ideas on the issue of youth mental well-being. Founded in 2016, Octava Foundation is a private Grantmaker seeking to empower children and youth to excel as citizens and contribute to a better world regardless of their socio-economic background. Since the adoption of a new impact roadmap in 2021, Octava Foundation has revised its grant making verticals to focus on education and student finance. In this spirit, they provide scholarships and bursaries to students in need and offer seed funding and technical capacity building to organisations developing programmes that address learning attainment, skills development, or employability issues for youths.

During the conversation, Octava Foundation highlighted a landscape research project it is embarking on in partnership with the Singapore government and NUS to uncover the roots of youth mental health issues in Singapore. The research aims to complete in July and its findings will help guide systemic interventions across the public, private, and people sectors.  

Li Foundation also shared the plans of the Inspiring Asia Microfilm Festival 2025, which will revolve around youth mental well-being as its theme this year. This builds upon existing initiatives like the Mental Health Film Festival Singapore to further raise awareness of innovative solutions to tackle the pernicious issue of mental health locally and in the region.