YFC: Hospice Care Association (HCA)

Organization: 
HCA Hospice Care

In 2011, a team was sent to participate in the Citi-YMCA Youth for Causes programme, supporting the beneficiary HCA-Hospice Care. It is an organisation that provides day care hospice services for patients with life-limiting illnesses. 

Our goal was to raise awareness of HCA Hospice Care, so HCA can gain more support and donations from the community. Funds raised will go to the day care centre, and programmes that give the patients morale and monetary support.  

What we did?

Working with SAJC photographic society, a notebook entitled "Happy Memories" was specially created  for the organisation. 

Students from Saint Advocates along with SAJC photographic society, went down to HCA and spent time interacting with the patients there. 

SAJC students interacting and having fun with HCA-Hospice Care patients

Though the sharing session with the patients, interesting stories were compiled. Relevant photographs of patients were also taken and added in, portraying the patients in their best moments. This allowed the patients to leave a legacy through their stories, passing on their knowledge.

An excerpt from the notebook

Poster used for publicity by YFC-HCA Hospice Care team

SAJC students introducing cup stacking to the local community as part of a fundraising event.

Through the sales, we raised about 2.2k. More importantly though the notebook helped raise awareness about HCA throughout the school and to the public. 

YFC: Caregivers Welfare Association (CWA)

Organization: Caregiver Welfare Association (CWA).

The aim of CWA is to improve the quality of life of elderly through dependable direct care services, and to create a generation of responsible and knowledgeable caregivers.

Who is the target audience of help?

There are two groups of target audience, the elderly and their caregivers.

What we have done?

We conducted sales in our school where we set up booth and sell handmade items of the Caregiver Welfare Association. We also distributed some pledge cards to some of our schoolmates. 

On Sundays, we also conducted street sales at churches and town areas like Orchard road. 

Lastly, it was our main event conducted at NEX event plaza. It was a three-day roadshow where we had sales of handmade items, exhibitions and interactive games with the public. We conducted beads-making lesson, balloon scruputuring session and health quiz as well. Not only did we raised funds for the CWA, we also achieved another important objective and that is to raise awareness about the organization.

Our publicity poster for our roadshow

Highlight of our roadshow – Garden of Love.

How much money we have raised?

We exceed our initial targeted amount of $2500 and had a total profit of $5543.59.

Brought to you by:

TEAM CWA 2011 - Nguyen Nguyet Anh, Teh Wen Shun, Sheena Tan, Gina Hiu.

Cultivating a Grateful and Gracious Society

Organization: Mercy relief

Mercy Relief was one of the major NGOs that provided aid during the Indian Ocean Tsunami 2004 and Japan Earthquake 2011.

Like the hand extending help in the logo, Mercy Relief provides assistance to disaster stricken communities in Asia.

Mercy Relief also focus on long term development projects for the impoverished and locally aims to develop a caring and socially-conscience society.

What does Mercy Relief do?

Internationally:

•  Disaster relief by providing first hand relief, rehabilitating victims and reconstructing affected areas.
• Contributing to sustainable development through education, healthcare, shelter, water and sanitation and teaching people skills for people to have sustainable livelihood.

Distributing rations during the 2011 Bangkok Floods

Locally:

•  School outreach to encourage students to appreciate and take action for humanitarian causes.
• Cultivating a Gracious and Grateful Society, Cultivating a Gracious and Grateful Society
• MOVE: Mercy Relief Volunteer Expeditions for volunteers to participate in projects complementing Mercy Relief’s current projects in Asia

Students on the MOVE expedition conducting English lessons for children

 Let’s play!

What we did:  

In 2011, Saints Advocate collaborated with Mercy Relief to organize the second Cultivating a Grateful and Gracious Spirit(CGGS) exhibition in school. Through CGGS, Mercy Relief aims to make Singapore a more gracious society and for people to appreciate and treasure more what they currently have.

Located at netball court, the CGGS tent showcased photo exhibitions of past projects by mercy relief in various disaster zones.  The exhibit included the amazing water purifying bicycle! This amazing bicycle could purify water as long as someone was peddling on it!

Saints Advocates teacher Mr Ho riding on the magical bike for CCA day!

As part of the exhibit, pledge booklets were also distributed to encourage people to pledge to become a more gracious member of society. 

YFC: Wheelchair basketball Association (WBA)

Story of Team N-ABLE '11

Team N-ABLE 11’ came about when 4brave souls decided to take up the challenge of raising funds for Wheelchair Basketball Association (WBA), a non-profit organisation that provides qualified individuals with physical disabilities the opportunity to play, learn, and compete in the sport of Wheelchair Basketball. We saw that WBA was deeply in need of funds as they lack sufficient facilities for their trainings, and we felt the urge to help them overcome their difficulties, so that they can excel in their passion for basketball.

From this burning desire to help, we applied for Youth for Causes so as to acquire seed money to start our project running. We came out with multiple ideas and in the end; we adopted the strategy of raising funds by selling merchandise and organising events. We made badges, shirts, straw hearts, cookies, and more! 

Shirt Design

Badges

We also wanted to advocate to the public about WBA so as to allow others to accept them and support them. Thus, we had our very own Wheelchair Basketball competition, where we saw many able-bodies competing in wheelchairs to have a firsthand experience of how WBA personnel would feel.

Participant in wheelchair taking a shot

Also, through mobilization of volunteers who shared our same passion, we managed to spread the word about WBA through our street sales in orchard, as well as churches in Singapore. In total, we managed to raise a profit of $1440.15 for WBA! Throughout this project, the greatest achievement would definitely be the growth in each of us, to be better servant leaders with the passion to advocate changes.

Everyone wants to change the world but not everybody wants to change. What about you?

Brought to you by:

Team N-able '11

Project Acknowledgement 2011

Target Audience: We aimed to reach out to our peers and seniors to foster greater awareness of the necessity and importance of our non-teaching staff.

What we have done:

General Overview- To enable to reach the students more effectively, we centred our advocacy on the central theme of trees. The contributions of the non-teaching staff are very much similar in that they are often unnoticed, yet when we really think about it, indispensable.

Our metaphorical branches of advocacy took the form of a presentation to the student body, an appreciation tree and a video presentation during the school’s annual Teachers’ Day celebration. The appreciation tree allowed the participation of the entire student body, tasking each class to write messages of appreciation to specific members of the non-teaching staff and sharing their personal stories of gratitude. Both presentations were well-received and served as an encouraging reminder to the non-teaching staff of our appreciation as well as creating greater awareness amongst the students. Lastly, eye-catching reminder labels were plastered around the school, reminding the students to “Greet, Smile, Thank” (G.S.T.). 

Our Unsung Heroes from Saints Advocate on Vimeo