The NUS Law School Peer Mediation Team was initially formed as a prelude to the ultimate goal of forming Singapore’s first student-based Peer Mediation Clinical Programme. From the modest membership of 3 law students during its inception in 2004, our team now boasts a total of approximately 20 dedicated individuals who actively participate in our Mediation and Conflict Resolution programmes and workshops targeting the Singaporean youth. Assisting the students is As/P Lim Lei Theng, a brilliant litigator and experienced mediator, who has graciously offered her time to conduct courses and training sessions for both the student-facilitators and participants of our workshops.

Our guiding principle is that our programme participants should walk away from the course having in mind a systematic analytical frame-work which can be used when he/she faces a conflict situation. Unlike other commercially available Mediation Courses, our Workshops are designed to be highly interactive. Instead of lengthy lectures and monologues, our focus is to allow our facilitators, who are young law students, to engage our participants in various discussions/dialogues on real issues that they would face in every facet of their daily lives.

To date, we have conducted numerous workshops and garnered vast experience in bringing the concept of conflict resolution to students across the spectrum of the student population – ranging from pre-secondary level to tertiary level. We appreciate that different participants require different styles of teaching and different goals to be achieved. We therefore try our best to customise our workshops to their specific needs.

Our more recent activities include the Hwa Chong Institution Mediation Programme (2007) and the Singapore Polytechnic Conflict Resolution Workshop (2007). Furthermore, the team also works closely with the Ministry of Community Development Youth and Sports, having successfully conducted the inaugural Singapore Boys’ Home Conflict Resolution Programme which saw our dedicated facilitators providing guidance to troubled teens and to better prepare them when they rejoin society.

The team is currently undergoing major restructuring as efforts are being made to bring our activities under the auspices of a new Law School Mediation Clinical Programme.

Kevin Ho is a fourth year law student and programme coordinator of the Peer Mediation Team.