Memories of Volunteering in Singapore

My first experience in volunteering was 17 years ago with my high school’s community project. My class was sent to clean the tiny apartments of a group of old folks who were either abandoned by their family or who never had any in the first place. I don’t remember much from it except the joy and sparkle in the eyes of some grannies (some of them were quite cranky too!).


My next experience was with some friends in tutoring the children of Chen Su Lan Children’s Home. These children are not all orphans, most of them being victims of broken families or whose parents are either imprisoned or too poor to bring them up. (Yes, in a place like Singapore, poverty does exist.) Except for a few who were intellectually challenged (and hence abandoned and neglected by their family) or bitter about their dire state, most of them were actually quite grateful to be there. I remember spending about 2 to 3 hours a week to tutor them and even did a song item for their Christmas celebration. My stint at this Children Home lasted about 3 months. Hey, you Samaritans out there who are still helping those kids out there, Iam taking my hats off you!


Not that I am very well-groomed myself but my latest experience was conducting a series of grooming classes for a bunch of about 20 teenage girls in an all-girls teenage crisis centre called the AG Home. These are girls between 12 to 19 yrs old and most of them were sent there because of some petty or juvenile crimes. I must say that I was pretty apprehensive before I arrived at the centre, as my ex-school teacher (the same one who led us to clean the old folks' apartment years ago) did not tell me much about it. I was quite apprehensive before going and wondered if I had to go through the baptism of their pranks just like what we see in movies. Lo and behold, it was nothing like that at all. Most of them were quite lovable but misunderstood. There was even a pregnancy centre for girls who had unwanted pregnancy but didn't abort the lives they carry. These girls were usually asked to stop school untill after they deliver their babies. I had the priviledge to witness the progress of a 15 year-old girl who eventually delivered her baby boy. There are just too many stories to tell and many of them reminded me of my teenage years when I could have ended in their state if I were to make a wrong move.


Anyway, I was volunteering at AG for only a few months before my full-time job got the better of me. Whenever I read about the development of the Home on the papers, I can't help but think about the love and effort of its founders and the many anonymous heroes behind it.

Give to receive: Volunteer

People volunteer for all kinds of reasons and to fulfill a wide array of needs out there. I believe that most, if not all of us, has an innate desire to be someone else’s hero. Be it an hour of tutoring your neighbor’s kid or spending a few days digging a well in a remote village in Cambodia, giving of ourselves does something to us deep within.

Although I have not been on any international volunteering projects but the few times I was involved in community work is enough to make me realize the reality of social and economical deprivation around us. My hands may be small but at a little help is better than no help at all. Here’s a story which you may have read but I thought thre’s no harm in sharing it here:

Once a man was walking along a beach. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. Off in the distance he could see a person going back and forth between the surf's edge and and the beach. Back and forth this person went. As the man approached he could see that there were hundreds of starfish stranded on the sand as the result of the natural action of the tide.

The man was stuck by the the apparent futility of the task. There were far too many starfish. Many of them were sure to perish. As he approached the person continued the task of picking up starfish one by one and throwing them into the surf.
As he came up to the person he said, "You must be crazy. There are thousands of miles of beach covered with starfish. You can't possibly make a difference." The person looked at the man. He then stooped down and pick up one more starfish and threw it back into the ocean. He turned back to the man and said, "It sure made a difference to that one!"