Project BRICK

The Youth Ambassadors from Raffles Institution (Junior College) collaborated with a CCA, Community Advocates in our school to organize a fundraising project to build a classroom for children in the Xieng Nguen ADP in Laos. (see link here: http://www.worldvision.org.sg/CF-Gift.php?catID=91) Aptly named BRICK, it stands for Building a Classroom for Kids.

In late October, students from the RI (Sec) Bowling Team set up a booth in their school canteen to help raise funds for this project and sold lego bricks to represent the bricks that donors were sponsoring through their donations. We also organized a car wash for the Parent-Teacher Meet together with the Humanities Programme's students who were going to Laos later in November for an overseas enrichment trip. Though an afternoon rain led us to lose a couple of cars, it definitely did not dampen our spirits as we continued to raise funds after the rain!

Early November, we set up a booth in RIJC's canteen, selling paper bricks which people could buy to sponsor a brick to help the construction of the classroom in Laos. Also, we had cardboard kids, which represented the students in the classroom we were raising funds to build, that people could sponsor as a class or as a group of friends. The response was great and we managed to fill up our entire board with bricks!



Classes were also very supportive with many classes coming together to pool together money to sponsor a student for the classroom, such as 11S03A here!



At the end of our fundraising campaign, we invited Raffles Rock to perform to raise awareness about the plight of many children in developing countries and to thank all the wonderful Rafflesians who came forward to sponsor a brick or a student and the parents who let us wash their cars during the PTM!

YAP is very grateful to have worked with Community Advocates' wonderful members who were indispensable in making this project a success! We would also like to thank everybody who made this project a success, especially RI(Sec) Bowling Team, Community Advocates, The Humanities Programme and every Rafflesian who helped to give the Laotian children a new classroom!

Cooking in preparation for our worktrip!

In preparation for our Bo Kluea ADP trip, a few of us met at Abby's house to bravely try our hand in cooking. The idea was to present the 'Singapore flavour' to our Thai friends, who will be spoiling us with their huge variety of authentic Thai food.

In my opinion, cooking as a way of expressing our gratitude and appreciation was a HORRIBLE idea.

When i signed up for the trip, doing heavy, manual work and interacting with boisterous Thai kids was what i had in mind. Cutting and boiling vegetables and meat was definitely not in the picture. I have tried cooking, not once, but many times. But from lower Secondary school days where i failed Home Economics class, my love for cooking has been non-existent.

Nonetheless, we were determined to rise up to the challenge, and reciprocate ADP's kindness with equal gusto. We tried our hand at Lontong, Chicken rice (complete with soup), Laksa and Tang yuan for dessert. To minimise risk, we trusted professionals and bought Prima Taste Vegetable curry, Prima Taste Chicken Rice and Prima Taste Laksa mixes. The Tang yuans, we did it ourselves, from the mixing of dough to filling, and to the boiling.

Needless to say, Tang yuan was unsuccessful. After enduring 6 tasteless Tang yuans each, we decided to find another recipe and try again another day. The rest of the dishes were saved by Bao Zhing, Bo Nian and Hnin Hnin and they tasted delicious. However, making the tang yuans with friends has been one of the most fun experiences i have had with cooking. Unlike others' tang yuans (which were either just dough balls studded with peanut chips or HUGE out of proportion ones), mine looked great :D This totally increased my confidence in cooking.
Cramming 8 mostly inexperienced teenagers in one kitchen was dangerous, but Abby was courageous enough to let us wrack havoc in her kitchen and dining table. THANKS ABBY!

All in all, it was rewarding to see the food you made look the way it's meant to look in the end. It was a great bonding time for everyone.
If not for our worktrip, who knows when we'll discover the fun in cooking?

Written by- YA Ding Ding

YA Ding Ding and YAP President Jun En making tang yuans

YAP Secretary, Daryl and YA Hnin Hnin cooking Lontong

The end product of a hard day's work of cooking

YAP Fundraising Comm Director, Bonian. Satisfied with the chicken rice!

The wonderful chefs of the day, including YA Bao Zing(not pictured here)

World Vision's Tree of Life at Vivo City

Christmas.

It's a time of giving, a time of receiving, and sometimes, a time we believe that dreams come true(such as Santa Claus might actually be some ruddy old man falling down into our HDB flats and housing estates to give us presents)

This Christmas, the Tree of Life was all of the above.

The tree of life allowed the public to show their love to the poor in all the World Vision supported countries.

It gave the chance for children in those countries to receive something that will go a long way, such as a warm blanket, or simple things like an apple tree, to keep their stomach full this Christmas.

And for some children, they found a sponsor this year, a dream that had finally come true. Something that will provide them the basic things that we all take for granted;food, clean water, health care and an education.

While I stood in Vivo City at the counter of Tree of Life, giving out Gift Catalogues where members of the public could donate some money to give a present to such children this Christmas, I finally remembered that Christmas isn't just about giving to our loved ones, but spreading the Christmas joy, was actually giving to a complete stranger, one that will treasure that gift for life.

Today, people from all walks of life donated, however small the sum may be. From families, to the elderly, young people, and even the housekeeping aunties, those that cleaned the floors of Vivo City.

They all requested for a gift catalogue, interested to help, to make a difference, no matter how small, or how much they could give.

This Christmas, I finally saw the joy of giving when generous hearts went to the Tree of Life, took down a child tag, and requested to sponsor a child.

This is Christmas.

That's why dreams come true during this season.

Tree of life booth in Vivo City

Our YA, Abigil at the Tree of life

To sponsor a child or give a gift from the gift catalogue, The Tree of Life will be there until the 22nd of December at Vivo City.

Alternatively, do drop by the World Vision Singapore website, http://www.worldvision.org.sg/index.php to request for a profile of children that can be sponsored.

AMKFSC Letter Friend

On the 18th of December, the YAP set off for Raffles Institution(RI) to begin our Letter Friend Project with the Ang Mo Kio Family Service Centre(AMKFSC). This project was initially a test run of teaching English to children with little or no prior English speaking experience. This was to be done when we go to our worktrip in the World Vision's ADP in Thailand next year(which we are excited about!)

At around 10AM, children all full of energy bounced into RI with their parents and family in tow. Looking back, we would never have thought these kids that aged from 4-8 years of age were all from low income families. During registration, our young participants were given a goodie bag each with food items, where they were being introduced to the alphabet that the first letter of the word was. Such as, 'B' for biscuit.

Following that, we started our games that incorporated the letters of the alphabet.

Due to privacy reasons, we are unable to upload pictures of the participants.

Our YA, Nicolette is demonstrating how to use the paints and sponges to fill up the letter H

The completed masterpiece done by the participants!

The mess that was being left after the chaotic but extremely fun sponge painting!

Other games like Word Rush, where participants had to play dog and bone-Letter Friend Style!

Playing other games like London Bridge, to allow our YAs to interact with the children, while being able to teach them some English, especially the sounds that each letter makes.

Our last, finale game was LETTER SNAKES AND LADDERS! Where all the kids had a chance to use the big dice we made, in order to reach the finishing point! However, they had to identify the letter on each space before advancing, serving as a revision, for what they had learnt. They also had to beware of the snakes and get a little boost from the ladders!

Our very own dice! made extra big for extra big snakes and ladders!

It was finally time for some lunch for both our YAs, volunteers and participants!

And our YAs were on hand to serve some tasty lunch to all!

Finally, we could all sit down and take a break, to enjoy each other's company!

The YAs and the volunteers of AMKFSC.

Our YAs, all tired but satisfied and heart warmed by the events of the day!

We want to thank AMKFSC for giving us an opportunity to work with them, cause it was definitely enjoyable for all of us, YAs who experienced the joy of making new friends (despite our age differences:))and also the joy of sharing what we knew, and sometimes take for granted(like our language) to those that don't have the opportunity!

On the 11^th December 2010, YAP had its first ever booth at Flashbang, a flea event once every 3 months, courtesy of For Jake Sake and Flea For Sake. It was held at the Singapore Flyer, and 20% of all proceeds of all stalls would go to Tan Tock Seng Patient Care Centre in support of HIV patients. Coincidentally, the Patient Care Centre is also World Vision Singapore’s adopted local charity.

Flashbang was packed with close to 80 stalls, selling a variety of items, ranging from clothes and accessories to antique phones and porcelain vases. It was a great honour that we were given a booth for free to sell our own merchandise to raise funds for our overseas work trip.

We sold pouches and wallets from Thailand, our very own designed T-shirts and cute notebooks from overseas. Due to high cost price and tough competition, sales were not as good as what we had foreseen.

Nevertheless, it was a great experience and many of us went home with great buys as well!

Written by YAP Fundraising Comm Director, Bonian

MYG MINDS SPORTS DAY

On the 4th-5th of November 2010, the YAP participated in the MYG MINDS Sports Day!

What is MYG MINDS you might ask? Well, it is the subsidiary voluntary wing of the Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore (MINDS). They were holding a sporting event for their trainees(or the interllectually disabled) so that the trainees would be able to improve their confidence and self esteem through playing such games. The YAP were helping out with the games, as game masters or facillitators. However before that, we had to learn all the rules and the basics of the game, bocce.

So all the YAs came down on the 4th November to learn to play some bocce. It was definitely one of those games that looked easy but, boy, it could become slightly confusing at times. However, we did have a ball of a time playing booce with each other, and we thought we were really ready for the real thing tomorrow!

The YAs playing bocce

Deciding the winner of the bocce game. Not as easy as it looks, it requires precision, accuracy and a really good eye!

The YAs with Earnest, who is in charge of the youth MYG.

The next day, we were prepared to face the challenge ahead, armed with cones, rafia, and the trusty measuring tape.

Due to privacy reasons, we are unable to take photos of the trainees, however, this is what our YAs did during the Sports Day.

Besides having loads of fun, we learnt so much more about the intellectually disabled, such as how to work with them, how to interact with them and how to cheer them on. The most heartening, i think, was the smiles on the trainees faces when they completed the games, or simply just enjoying themselves.

Here's something from one of our YAs, Petrina and how she felt about the event

"The day started normally, and I had to get up exceptionally early on a Saturday. I had to drag myself out of bed and started my journey to Raffles Institution. Upon reaching the track at RI, we had a short briefing and soon, MYG trainees together with volunteers started streaming in. We watched as they walked past us, and all of them seemed really happy to be there.

The games started, and I was at station 2 with Sharon. The trainees that played the game had different functioning levels, some high and some low. Some needed help from the volunteers, while some were rather good at the game. At the beginning, I was a little apprehensive about how it would all turn out. As the games proceeded, I had the opportunity to interact with a few trainees, from age 9 through 19. Differences aside, they were actually like anyone else. I enjoyed myself that day, and I had a pleasant time interacting with the trainees. After that day, I learnt a lot more about MYG. Seeing their jubilant faces when they received their medals, I felt that the sun burnt everyone got was worth it. "

This experience was definitely something the YAP will remember, and despite our peeling skin and burnt faces due to the scorching sun, we hope that we could make someone so simply happy, even if it were just for a day.