What the problem is

While many initiatives have emerged locally to address youth mental health, there is potentially a gap in upstream programs tailored to younger children—whose developmental stage is pivotal for building the emotional and social foundations needed to cope with future challenge.

How they solve for it

A landscape mapping of programs that are targeted, evidence-based and age-appropriate for 3-11 year-olds  can help identify areas for improvement and inform future research and development in childhood mental health.

What the problem is

Existing solutions aimed at providing equitable learning opportunities for children often fall short in addressing the child’s needs outside of school. With unclear impact from current interventions, and only a small pool of funders committed to long-term support, there is a limit to how much current programs can address the socioeconomic disadvantage gap in children’s learning outcomes.

How they solve for it

The Wonder Arc Fund brings together donors and partners to catalyse equitable learning for disadvantaged children by investing in evidence-informed solutions, building new evidence around effective interventions, including addressing the child’s needs in their home and community environments.

What the problem is

In Thailand, despite high primary school enrollment, many students lack basic literacy and numeracy skills due to a content-heavy curriculum and limited teacher capacity. School leaders, often focused on administration and test scores, under supported in their professional development are not positioned to drive instructional change, further hindering innovation and learning outcomes.

How they solve for it

The three-year pilot run of the Future School Transformation program aims to address these gaps by equipping school leaders with the training, tools, and innovations needed to drive meaningful change. Through professional development and access to initiatives like 3R Innovation for literacy and Makerspace Innovation for STEAM skills, committed school leaders could shift toward a competency-based curriculum and improve learner outcomes.

What the problem is

There is room, and need for people facing mental health challenges to access social support and ways to focus on their whole self in order to recover and thrive beyond clinical and therapeutic approaches.

How they solve for it

Youths with mental health lived experience are empowered through participation in a peer support program that builds a safe space to share, connect, and support one another. A playbook from the pilot will guide consistent, evidence-based peer support aligned with the national tiered care model.

What the problem is

Children today rely on a wider support network beyond teachers, yet current programs either do not or inadequately engage these influences. Meanwhile, parents as primary supports, face bandwidth and contextual challenges that hinder meaningful involvement in their child’s development.

How they solve for it

Build and implement a strategy that would equip the diverse adults around the child with the skills that will help them form strong bonds and give inspiriting learning experiences essential to positive child development.

What the problem is

kidsREAD is a nationwide reading programme aimed to promote the love of reading among children from low-income families. NLB collaborated with the Ministry of Education (MOE) to establish kidsREAD clubs in primary schools, that are run by student volunteers from secondary schools and junior colleges. A key challenge lies in training an increasing number of student volunteers in the long run.

How they solve for it

To improve the sustainability and cost-effectiveness of the kidsREAD programme, an online volunteer training model was developed to scale and facilitate onboarding of new volunteers recruited.

What the problem is

Building children’s socioemotional skills is a long-term endeavour, reliant on adult relationships and consistent expert guidance. Singapore has diverse programs that aims to support children’s socioemotional development but these are mostly short-term, centre-based, and face challenges such as high turnover, and skills shortage. Local social work also takes an adult or family-centric approach which hinders the child-developmental lens.

How they solve for it

STAR is a long-term mentorship program that journeys with children from age 6 for 8 years through professional mentors. These mentors provide individualised weekly support to strengthen children’s socioemotional development and learning goals.

What the problem is

Students who are less equipped in foundational numeracy not only lack understanding and fluency in basic math concepts and skills, but they also have low motivation and confidence. In addition, there is a lack of numeracy programmes in the community space.

How they solve for it

Research recommends the use of repetitive learning and games-based approaches to boost students’ numerical development and ability to overcome math anxiety. An after-school programme based on these approaches was designed to complement school efforts and boost math confidence and motivation.

What the problem is

While EdTech offers promise in scaling quality teaching, personalizing learning, expanding practice, and boosting engagement, few edTech solutions effectively reach low-resource learners in the region. High-tech tools remain inaccessible, and low- to mid-tech solutions are early-stage and underfunded. A major gap exists in both innovations tailored to low-resource settings and the technical and capacity support needed to help these solutions succeed.

How they solve for it

Catalysing impact by supporting early-stage solutions that have the potential to be accessible and affordable and are focused on underserved K-12 learners in the region, supporting with investment funding, access to networks, technical assistance, mentoring and coaching.

What the problem is

Children and youth from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds often lack the support and opportunities needed to pursue and realise their goals and aspirations, limiting their long-term potential and perpetuating cycles of disadvantage.

How they solve for it

Mindblown is a long-term, holistic secondary school program addressing educational aspiration. Working with schools and parents, it focused on executive functioning and learning aspirations of the youth.

What the problem is

Tertiary education and skills training in Southeast Asia remain out of reach for many due to limited, inaccessible, or unaffordable student financing options. The region’s underdeveloped student finance market, especially for underserved communities, presents the need for innovative student finance solutions with potential of scale like the Future Income Sharing Agreement (FISA) to improve access, affordability, and availability.

How they solve for it

Enable the assessment of Financial Income Sharing Agreements (FISAs) as a student finance tool in Southeast Asia. Octava’s investment into the Pioneer Fund aims to deploy FISA to up to 500 students, and evaluate its feasibility and relevance for a broader market beyond Wedu’s Rising Star participants, and long-term sustainability through fund recovery. The assessment also aims to determine whether Wedu or other institutions, such as universities or TVET colleges, could effectively implement the model, by identifying key challenges and barriers to its adoption in the region.

What the problem is

Young children from disadvantaged families struggle academically in school due to relatively weaker foundational literacy skills and their families are unable to afford services provided by tuition or enrichment centers.

How they solve for it

The RISE and Reading Program enabled children in foster families to read, write, spell and communicate confidently and effectively in English, putting them on a level playing field with their peers in school.