Friendship Week 2015

SAJC celebrated Friendship Week on February 11-13, 2015 with the theme “It’s a small, small world”. It was organised by the 5th Saints Advocate in collaboration with Simei Care Centre (SCC) to bring all Saints together as one family unbroken and to raise awareness of the SCC patients.

The atmosphere was incredibly high all week as students were hyped up by what we had in store. Exciting posters hung around the school aroused curiosity, but even more exciting wasthe fact that our beneficiaries, SCC, visited SAJC during morning assembly to perform a dance number and shared their personal experience.

Various activities were held in the fitness corner. From our unique ball pit where friends and strangers had a chance to converse, to the Photo Booth where juniors and seniors congregated to capture sweet memories together, there was never a dull moment.

Various activities during Friendship Week 2015

The merchandise booth was definitely one of the highlights, Handmade items like flowers and notepads from SCC were available at affordable prices, but it wasn't that which made the sales such a success. Students, teachers and other staff took the initiative to ask about our friends in SCC, and even went beyond that to enquire what else they can do to help. It was honestly a heartwarming sight to see meaningful bonds forged between strangers, all in the spirit of love and care. On top of that, the students had a chance to see SCC members’ paintings at the Music Cafe displayed all week. Students learned to appreciate the members’ talent and creativity, and some even expressed admiration and inspiration from SCC who were given so little, yet gave so much.

Since Valentine’s Day was just around the corner, we also sold balloons of different designs for Saints to give as a statement of gratitude to their friends and loved ones. The reception was astonishing – stocks ran out in hours, testament to our community’s insurmountable capability for concert and the invaluable “One Family Unbroken” spirit we boast.

Friendship Week 2015 highlights

Friendship Week was truly a success as the Saints Advocate was able to raise funds for Simei Care Centre as well as for the future St Andrew’s Village Indoor Sports Complex. However, its success did not stop there. Our aim to forge better relationships among the Saints, to build a more inclusive student body and to advocate for the cause of psychiatric patients at SCC were met with great success, and we have only the guidance from our CCA teachers and help from the students and school staff to thank.

We hope that friendships continue to grow for the years to come and may the Friendship Weeks down the road not cease to enkindle in us the love and care for the community internal and beyond. Indeed, it's a small, small world after all!

Behind the scene: Preparation work by Friendship Week task force

Friendship Week 2015 task force

Application Form for Saints Advocate 2015

Calling all JC1s who are interested in joining Saints Advocate! Attached is the application form for admission into our CCA this year.

To download the application form below, just follow a few simple steps: 

Step 1: Move cursor over the attached application form and click on the 'pop-out' icon. You should then be directed to a new page. 

Step 2: On the new page, click on the 'download' icon. 

Attached application form

Project Acknowledgement - "The Blessing in Our Stars"

Project Acknowledgement is a project intended to get the student populace to recognize the efforts and contributions made by the non-teaching staff. The theme for this year's event is "The Blessing in Our Stars". A series of activities have been conducted within a period of two weeks (from end August to early September) to engage the student body in expressing their appreciation for the non-teaching staff through various means. 

               Hand-written cards of appreciation done by student body for the non-teaching staff

                                 Students meticulously penning down their thoughts of gratitude


As part of the Project Acknowledgement task force (PATF), I learnt a very important lesson which was to be able to adapt to changes. At the later part of our project, we experienced some major changes to our plans and as a task force, we had to respond quickly to the unheralded changes before the event kicks off in just a couple of weeks. We had to figure out how to reduce the workload for PATF without losing the impact and importance we wanted to achieve - which was for the student body to appreciate the non-teaching staff.

Another lesson I learnt through PATF was the importance of finding a balance between making the project appealing to the audience (in order to garner their participation) and to have purpose of this project well-conserved.

On the day of the project's implementation, PATF struggled to keep track with the participation of the entire student cohort. This has taught us that when dealing with a massive number of participants, there is no guarantee that everyone will adhere to our instructions. Henceforth, we must always have backup plans in place beforehand in preparation for unforeseen circumstances.

Nur Aqilah
5th Saints Advocate

JC1 Service Learning Day - Lumos

JC1 Service Learning Day is a day where the entire college of students is mobilized to be involved in community engagement programs outside of the campus. Held on teacher's day every year, Saints gain a better insight of society's needs through various activities such as the "Big Sweep" - an event initiated by the Metropolitan Youth Men's Christian Association.  

"Big Sweep" is a meaningful program which aims to improve the living conditions of the destitute, elderly and needy families by cleaning and refurbishing their homes, making their homes a much better place to live in. 

   
                                                          Batch photo with the elderly 

JC 1 SL Day was a really good experience for me, from the planning to the event itself. One very important lesson I learnt was the need to communicate with clarity when working as a team as miscommunication can happen easily and this would lead to many other complications. It was heartwarming to see the JC ones participating in the activity and taking care of the elderly during the event itself. Some of them felt reluctant to come but many of them felt blessed by the event after, which made me feel really happy.

Rachael Ng
5th Saints Advocate

                                         
                                                                    The 5th Advocates

Service Learning Day was successful despite some crisis that we faced on the day itself.

The performance was one of the things that turned out pretty well despite majority of the performers being from Advocates itself. However, the preparation for the performance was a bit rushing due to time constraints. We could have attracted more external performers so as to minimize our workload in preparation for both SL day and the performance at the same time. Better publicity for performance should be expected for next year’s SL day in order to attract more participants.

Unfortunately, during the sing-along session with the elderly - our main target audience, it turned out that they were not responding well to this program that was specially tailored for them. As a result, they were not entirely engaged and were "left out" when the Saints were singing together, linking their arms. The Advocates reacted quickly to this situation and tried to interact with the elderly and encouraged them to join in the singing of National Day songs. Upon reflecting on this matter, i felt that  more could have been done to prevent this from happening. One possibility is to include Chinese songs in the sing-along. This problem should be raised next year so that this project can be of a greater success. 

Vincent Setiawan

5th Saints Advocate 

Hair for Hope 2014

Back for the 12th consecutive year, Hair for Hope 2014 is a signature fundraising event under the Children's Cancer Foundation. It is the only head-shaving event in Singapore which serves to raise funds and awareness of children cancer. In the month of July this year, students from our college together with those from Raffles Junior College, have collaborated to participate in this event, where the latter was the hosting college in which the event had taken place. 

Through this event, participants shave their heads for a purpose - to express their empathy, and at the same time, show their support for children who had lost their hair in the process of undergoing cancer treatments (e.g. Chemotherapy). It was heart-warming to see many Saints volunteering themselves to have their heads shaved in support for children with cancer. What was even more surprising were the handful of courageous girls who stepped out of their comfort zone to participate in this event, breaking the stereotype that only males would be willing to have their heads shaved. 

Narthana Anandan

5th Saints Advocate