Creating Memorable ‘Moments’ at NUS Community Engagement Festival 2016

 The Community Engagement (CE) Festival 2016 conducted by CAPT college of NUS was an insightful and fun event which allowed students like us, Saints Advocates, with a similar mission and vision to come together, share our experiences and know more about some underprivileged communities in Singapore.

“The Community Engagement Festival was so much more fun than I expected! I had expected it to be like an exhibition with little interactive activities but it turned out to be better. We got to meet people from different age group and backgrounds, and we interacted through many activities, like cooking urah pisang (I think) and churros, and planting kokedama (I think) from scratch! Not only was it a fun experience, I learnt many things too” –Karen

Planting kokedama to freshen up the days ahead!

Talking to the various groups offered us an insight into their world, the problems they suffer through and how many hardships they and their families have been through to continue living happily and finding a place for themselves in this world and today’s society. For example, we got to know that the Migrant Workers who are new in Singapore are often sexually and verbally abused and that disabled children are often bullied and looked down upon by other Singaporeans. This year’s theme “Moments” encouraged us to communicate and learn, from and with the other underprivileged community groups present like Migrant Workers, Elderly and children with disabilities. Here are thoughts and learnings by some of our Saints Advocates members and how the acts and words of the community members created moments which they are likely to remember for a long time:

“The most exciting activity for me was the activity where we had to make our very own dumplings. Both the migrant workers and elderly were very passionate and willing to teach us, since they have cooking knowledge and skills. They were patient and taught us step by step what to do. Unlike the usual image of migrant workers working long hours in the sun, it was very heart-warming to see a different side of them.” – Monika Ng

“While most people are usually under the impression that the elderly are boring and not tech-savvy, through the elderly in my group, I learned today that this is actually not true for most. One of the elderly in my group, Madam Sim was 81 years old and yet she was very proficient with using the iPhone.” Yi  Hao

Learning from elderly how to make roses from pandan leaves

Not only were we Advocates able to know more about the conditions and problems faced by the underprivileged groups in our community but we aim to use the knowledge we gained as a stepping stone to guide us in initiating projects or events which will aim to help these groups of people more and spread awareness about them to our fellow Saints. By doing so and conducting various other events or activities we hope to bring the Saints closer to the community which has supported us and encourage them to give back to the society. Here are some off the thoughts from our ambitious Advocates:

“One thing that I found really useful was my conversation with one of the facilitators. She shared with me some activities that the NUS people have done for the Migrant Worker project. It really gave me inspiration to do the same since I am currently also in the Migrant Worker task force”

-Yin

“I think CE fest is a great initiative by CAPT as it brings together like minded individuals and the more vulnerable groups of society together. Through this interaction, we can better understand their predicaments and also lend a listening ear to them. This probably sounds a little ambitious, but if we as Advocates can also organize a similar event for the community/SAJC, I think it will be quite suitable and meaningful since after all, we are the bridge between the community and the school.” -Ysabelle

Creating music with household items and with elderly and migrant workers, some of whom even sung songs in their Mother Tongue Language.

We Advocates are really grateful that we had an opportunity to attend this festival and were able to take away various learning points from it¸ which we hope will better enable us to fulfil our mission of ‘Advocating Changes, Inspiring Lives’.

Beautiful moment created at CAPT’s CE festival