Youth Advocacy and Dialogue Towards a Sustainable Social Harmony: Racial Harmony Day Engagement with Ms Nazhath Faheema for Y3 and Y4 Josephians

As part of Racial Harmony commemorations this year, our Year 3 and 4 Josephians had the opportunity to hear from Ms Nazhath Faheema who shared about her efforts in the community to promote cohesion among different groups.

Ms Nazhath Faheema is the founder of hash.peace, a social harmony advocacy group led by youths from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. She continues to contribute to the community and serves as the Vice-Chairperson for Eunos Harmony Circle, where she facilitates youth leadership. She is the recipient of the President's Volunteerism & Philanthropy Awards (People of Good) 2021, the highest honor for volunteerism in the community, conferred by the President of the Republic of Singapore.

Speaking to our Josephians, Ms Faheema shared about her personal motivations for championing and contributing to efforts to promote racial and religious harmony in Singapore. This included feeling compelled to contribute to promoting awareness and understanding, as she often found herself at the receiving end of ignorant and even hurtful racist remarks. She understood that anger would not be sustainable and a more constructive response to ignorance and racism is to engage, raise awareness and educate others in the community.

Kaedrin Herman Isaacs (ML301), one of the student moderators for the dialogue and engagement with Ms Faheema, shared how the insights she shared, ‘struck a chord with many of us and made us think about how we can be more mindful and sensitive in our interactions with others. It is important that we make the extra effort and have a care to ensure we do not offend and hurt others in our community through what we say or do’.

In closing the robust dialogue and engagement with many Josephians posing questions to Ms Faheema, our Vice-Principal for Curriculum and Student Development Mr Dominc Ang shared that, ‘Ms Faheema’s experiences and contributions are excellent examples of how we can make a positive impact in the community. In fact, her contributions are commendable because she set out on her own.

For Josephians, we are guided by this idea of fraternity, and we can leverage on our friendships with Josephians to make meaningful contributions like Ms Faheema in the community’.

We thank Ms Nazhath Faheema for taking the time to speak with and engage our Josephians on how they can contribute to efforts to strengthen our social harmony in Singapore. We look forward to more opportunities to engage individuals and groups who can inspire our Josephians to make a difference in the community!