Since 2010, I have - alhamdulillah - quite a clear idea of happiness from an Islamic perspective. Helping my students become happier is quite easy. Their lack of happiness is rooted in a lack of understanding of Islam. By asking them to listen to Islamic talks every week, I am "forcing" my students to improve their knowledge - and this helps them to develop a more optimistic and happier outlook on life. As an incentive, I dangle very good coursework marks to push them forward.
The trick is whether I can use a similar (but different) approach with school kids who I cannot reward by giving them coursework marks. One idea is to get teenagers to make videos about other successful teenagers. I launched this project today with two schools in Gombak. Hopefully, through a process of vicarious learning, they will find that their life (and level of happiness) improves.
