Friendship Week 2016 

With the annual Friendship Week having just ended, Saints got together to not only celebrate existing friendships, but also forge new ones with peers as well as those from Simei Care Centre. For us the advocates, it was a meaningful experience raising funds for the centre, while being able to share with our peers some of the misconceptions that many people have towards the psychiatrically disabled.

Saints having fun at the photo booth :)

Reflections by Kartheegeyan s/o Mahandra, 15S08, 6th Saints Advocate 

"Friendship week has personally been a very enriching and meaningful experience. Having gone through the difficulty of settling into the JC life especially for the JC1 students. The Friendship week event helped the JC1 students bond better with their class. We were successful in doing so as many JC1s came with their classmates to take photos at the photo booth and bought balloons for their friends. While the JC1 students began forming new friendships, the JC2 student took this opportunity to strengthen their friendships in this crucial year. 

Advocating for the mentally disabled together with Simei Care Centre made this event very meaningful especially after going over to SCC to know more about mental illnesses and the general stereotypes they face. I was very glad to see how many of them have been cured of their conditions. Their performance and the sharing of the testimony in our school definitely inspired me and I’m sure it would have inspired the rest as well.   

I felt that we all worked well together as a task force, helping and supporting one another by giving constructive feedback and lending a helping hand. For me I was in charge of filming and editing the video. Even though I had no prior experience in editing videos, I took it as an opportunity to learn and decided to take responsibility for the video. While shooting the scenes, we displayed teamwork as everybody was there regardless or not they were acting. The planning and execution of Friendship week was rather smooth and not cramped in the last minute. This was because we all did our individual tasks properly and supported each other. I am very glad to have worked with this group of people for Friendship Week 2016. 

For our overall performance at the booth and sales, the 1st day was rather a bad start as sales were low and we did not really attract much attention. However we did not let it get over us, we stayed back and made changes to the booth and the arrangements.  We persisted and sales started to improve. Thus even though the preparation period was during our holidays and MSA period we pressed on together and helped advocate for the psychiatrically disabled."

Overall, Friendship week was a memorable and meaningful event for both the college as well as Simei Care Centre :)