By Ariann Khoo (26S06B), Jaden Lum (26S05A) and Nithilan Balachander (26A01C)

Project Enjo (Japanese for “aid”) is not your average tutoring VIA. From building terrariums, to music video production using GarageBand, to web design and product innovation using Canva, it is focused on fostering holistic growth in their hard-to-please stakeholders: cheeky 11 to 12-year-olds. 

Founded by its five main members, they transform mundane tutoring sessions into Enjo-yable activities aimed at broadening the students’ worldviews, going far beyond worksheets and classroom-style teaching. By exploring usually unventured VIA territories like career guidance, STEAM (with the often-neglected “A” for arts) appreciation, character building, and social awareness, Project Enjo redefines what community service can look like.

One of their members recalled teaching students financial literacy, turning mundane talks about economics and finance into the “Game of Life”, a role-play game where children learn about financial literacy and social inequality in a more approachable and digestible manner. To Project Enjo, it’s all about making things meaningful, easily understandable and memorable.

Theory will only take you so far 

On paper, running programmes for primary school kids in a student care centre doesn’t seem that complicated. But as Enjo’s members repeatedly discovered, no amount of planning can really prepare you for the reality of each hour-to-hour-and-a-half-long session.

“Every session was unpredictable,” the team recalls. For one, energy levels fluctuated wildly depending on the day. One week’s group  of eager and enthusiastic kids could easily arrive dull and disinterested the next. 

When the project—that was once limited to only holidays—transitioned to weekly sessions, the team had to reckon with an entirely new rhythm: even we know all too well that dealing with younger kids after a long school day is a completely different ball-game from dealing with them on a free afternoon.

The sheer volume of sessions was no joke either. Having done this project with different groups of kids, keeping the programme fresh—and keeping themselves motivated—became its own challenge for the members. 

Community advocacy, one of the project’s earlier focuses, proved particularly hard to sustain. “It got dry and repetitive,” the team admits. They had to respond deliberately: constantly rotate activities, find new things to do, and resist the temptation to recycle what might have worked before. 

Beyond that, they had to deal with pushback from their stakeholders, too. When centre managers occasionally rejected the sessions they had painstakingly planned, they had to pivot last-minute. 

The most important stakeholders are, of course, the kids themselves. And sometimes, they had their own agenda of just wanting to chill around and unwind, rather than to do something “productive”, as both the team and centre managers had hoped.. 

Rather than treating this as insurmountable, the team learnt to negotiate, compromise, and work around this challenge. Once the students completed the various learning objectives that the team had set out, they got games or playtime as a reward, like building cardboard houses during a particular session. The kids were even taught how to build terrariums.

But, if anything, it was perhaps the challenges themselves that built this project into what it is today

Process over perfection 

The children’s screaming. Their mischief. Their incessant “6-7”s. They never stopped, and neither did the team. 

Project Enjo has been in the making for more than 4 years, and as the kids grew up, so did they. When asked what about the odyssey that took them from libraries to childcare centres they were proudest of, they remarked that it was the learning along the way, the creativity and adaptability they displayed as a team in brainstorming activities before executing plans.

However, four years on, the team is now armed with more hindsight than ever. The beginnings of Project Enjo, they admitted, lacked a defined sense of direction, and along the way, more volunteers for the project were also needed. This gave way to their most profound lessons: to lay out clear objectives, but to always be open to changes. 

Last Call 

Through getting “bullied” by the kids, the long commutes to Simei and back (which were often longer than the sessions themselves), and the exhaustion of it all, persistence has always been the thread running through Project Enjo. And as each volunteering session passed, the team and the kids got closer and closer to one another.

Nevertheless, all things must come to an end. Now, as everyone inevitably sets off onto diverging paths, the laughter and joy of Project Enjo remain imbued in group photographs, silly music videos and gifted drawings—footsteps, some larger, many smaller but ultimately together, imprinted forever into the relentless sands of time.

We ended our interview enquiring if the team had any parting messages to the kids (so if you aren’t one of the kids you should scroll away). 

To them: Project Enjo hopes that you had fun, enjoyed their sessions and did not dread them, and of course that you left learning something new—those career exploration sessions might come in handy! Last but not least, they hope to see you again soon. 

1 step back, 3 steps forward

And now, Project Enjo has a piece of advice to anyone thinking of starting something like them: don’t do it alone. Find people who share your vision, define what you want to do and where you want to go early on, and be prepared to throw your plans out and start again (in case a 10-year-old would rather build a cardboard house).

As Project Enjo knows, the real joy is in showing up anyway.