Ms Tan Yan Min, 24, is one of the many artists under Arts@Metta, a program under Youth Employment Support, which aims to empower our youth with special needs with work and life skills that promote integration, independence and socialization.
Yan Min started at Arts@Metta in 2020 and has experimented with different art forms and watercolour paintings. Her art pieces beam with vibrant colors and energy, expressing her cheerful and friendly personality. She especially enjoys painting sunflowers because the bright colours remind her of happiness.
Currently, she commutes to Jewel Changi Airport every Tuesday for retail job training at our Sift and Pick’s pop-up store. In her role as a sales representative, Yan Min learned how to interact with customers and effective sales strategies. She records her presentation notes dutifully in a small notebook, which she brings with her whenever she is on duty. This supposedly helped her to organise her thoughts and made her more confident.
The biggest takeaway for her from this training programme is overcoming the fear of speaking to a customer in the public. Once a shy individual, she gradually learns to engage her customers and proudly shows off products created by her and her team members.
Despite being mildly intellectually disabled, this has not deterred her from exploring other hobbies and interests like learning photography and modelling on fashion runways. Yan Min hopes to do catwalking and become a model one day.
Our products at Sift & Pick pop-up are also available online. Check them out here
