First Day of CCA Fair

It has been a hectic and wonderful day so fair in school. I have never perspired so much in school, running up and down preparing the marketing collaterals for our Booth. Nonetheless, the team enjoyed ourselves sharing our SIFE mission with fellow NTU Students.

Response for Project Waterloo is very healthy and we are bringing in another YEP - Project Tiwala! (means faith in tagalog) for our new SIFE members. Project Tiwala is an overseas project in Philippines and it is a joint project with NUS students. Keep your eyes open for NTU SIFE's booth!

P.S. We are located near LT 8, near the Singtel Booth. For any enquiries, feel free to ask the representatives at the booth. Alternatively, email us at ntusife@gmail.com.

History of NTU SIFE

To our dear freshies who will chance upon this page,

Below is a summary of the history of our club.

We have worked hard, but we had played hard as well.

We would like to invite you to join us in making a difference to the world we live in. =)

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History of NTU SIFE

Prior to the current team, there was no succession planning.

All of the previous teams were formed for the sole purpose of competing in the SIFE Nationals.

They were disbanded after the Nationals. Thus the experience gained by each team over the years was not passed down.

Formation of NTU SIFE

About 1.5 years ago, a few of us came together and formed an team by ourselves to compete in the nationals with our first project - Hawkers Financial Literacy Programme.

Since then, our team has grew from 5 people to 10 people.

We are now embarking on NTU SIFE's recruitment drive over the next 3 days (17 -19th August 2009).

SIFE Nationals 2008

We took part in the Nationals with our first project.

And we emerged as the finalists in the competition, with the support of Prof Clive and Mr Anthony Teo, Secretary of NTU.

The team was very heartened by the results and continued working on other projects.

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First SIFE Project(Hawkers Financial Literacy Programme) (Contributed by Guanyi)

In March 2008, a financial literacy project targeted at the hawkers was conceived as we felt that there was a need to lift the veil about insurance and emphasize the importance of maintaining bookkeeping records to track cashflows.

This will have a positive effect on their personal finance and businesses.

Through the project, we collaborated with various parties to develop suitable materials and method of delivery.

Eventually, a fruitful and interactive workshop was conducted where we shared some insurance insights and bookkeeping skills with the participants.

Second SIFE Project(MISE Competition) (Contributed by Diana)

NTU SIFE participated in the Mayor's Imagine Social Entrepreneurship (MISE) Challenge in 2008, emerging as finalists in the competition. MISE is a social entrepreneurship business plan competition, whereby students are paired with Voluntary Welfare Organisations (VWOs) to identify sustainable businesses that can be started to empower the beneficiaries in the VWOs.

Third SIFE Project(CycleCulture) (Contributed by Ming Zhou)

CycleCulture is a project undertaken by NTUSIFE which exploits the recent public transport experiment to allow foldable bicycles on the Singapore MRT system.

NTUSIFE students showed international students around various places of interest in Singapore with the use of foldable bicycles and the public transport system.

CycleCulture embraces the 'Go Public' philosophy in encouraging young people, both local and international, to make use of the public transport network.

This initiative not only promotes environmental friendliness by reducing the emission of greenhouse gases, it also promotes a healthy lifestyle through cycling.

However, we stopped the project as NTU didnt support cycling due to safety issues.

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First Forum (Contributed by Juhu)

Title: Social Entrepreneurship: Business with a Heart (23 Jan 09)

Speakers: Jack Sim from World Toilet Organization, Hazel Menon from Beauty Immanuel, Bernise Ang from Syinc.

During the Forum, we also had a Student Sharing Session whereby students from ITEs and Polytechnic get to showcase their projects with NTU Students.

ITE KARE Team to present their product: bags made from recycle materials.

SPSIFE Team to present their SIFE projects

NTUSIFE Team to present our vision and mission + past projects: Cycle Culture, Mayor's Imagine for Social Enterprise (MISE) Competition, Financial Literacy Hawker Project.

Second Forum(Contributed by Diana)

Title: Get Real: The Untold Stories of Entrepreneurs.

Speakers: Mr Samuel Chia of NYDC Cafe, Ms Nanz Chong-Komo of Komo Pte ltd, Ms Elfaine Tan of Fr3b.com

NTU SIFE is coorganising this forum in the upcoming Entrepreneurship and Innovation Festival organised by the Nanyang Technopreneurship Centre.

Third Forum(GK Forum) (Contributed by Juhu)

Title: The Art of Changing Lives: Discovering Opportunities in Social Enterprise (27 Aug 09)

Speakers: Antonio Meloto - Founder of Gawad Kalinga, Bebet Gozun - Head of Green Kalinga (GK's Environmental arm)

Mr Antonio Meloto will be introducing their holistic poverty eradicating strategy development: a stage of social artistry. The way social innovation works into process for sustainability.

Ms Bebet Gozun will touch on the reality part of environmental projects implementation, the feasibility and innovation.

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Existing Project(YEP) (contributed by minghui)

Currently, NTU SIFE is working on Project Waterloo. It is a Youth Expedition Project(YEP) which is funded by National Youth Council.

The project can be broken down into 3 phases, Pre-expedition, Expedition and Post Expedition.

Now till November: Pre-expedition consists of recruitment, fund-raising activities, team-bonding/facilitation sessions, local project(e.g. Blessings in a Bag)

December: Expedition consists of building a water filtration system in Pursat Province, Cambodia.

January till March: Post-expedition is still in the pipeline. It has to be a local project as well.

Existing Project(GK Project)

To be updated by Juhu.

Existing Project(Recruitment) (contributed by minghui)

A solid recruitment is critical to the sustainability of NTUSIFE.

And we are not sparing any effort to ensure that we get the right people we want over the next 2 weeks.

Welcome Tea Session(26th August, Monday)

A session for newcomers to know more about SIFE.

We plan to invite SIFE SG to come down and share with the newcomers about SIFE.
Venue to be confirmed.

Presentation at GK Forum(27th August, Thursday)
In line with the social entrepreneurial theme of the forum, NTU SIFE will have an official launch during the event.
The club will share its vision and projects with a student audience of approximately 100-200.

Homerun I
1.Fundraising
a.Selling Food
i. YaKun
ii. Finger food
iii. Old Changkee
b.Photography
i. Taking professional shots for namecard
c.T-shirt
i. Selling t-shirts in school

2.Local Projects
a.Blessings in a bag
b.Sungei Buloh Wetland CIP

3.Facilitation session
a.Interview/selection(2nd/3rd Week)
b.Introduction to YEP + Setting groundrules/expectations + Goals/Objectives(4th Week)
c.Cambodian Movie/Make a Stand game/ Human knot(5th week)
d.Cultural lessons/Language(After exams)
e.Final Briefing(Prior to departure)

Expedition
1.Cambodia (December)
a.Water filtration
b.Kindergarten

Homerun II
1.Local Project(???)

Meeting with Blessings In A Bag

We wish we'd taken a picture with the Blessings In A Bag (Blessings, for short) team during our recent meeting with them at Starbucks, Wisma Atria!

Nevertheless, we had a fruitful discussion and found that their work can be aligned to our YEP project. The people in attendance as follows:

Waterloo - Minghui, Victor and Diana

Blessings - Emily Teng and Darren Lin

Emily and Darren are two gungho souls who have contributed much of their time, money and effort in ensuring that their cause is able to touch the lives of hundreds of needy children overseas. They solicit for donations of school items, hygiene products and clothes locally, and obtain the generous support of travellers going overseas to ship the 'blessings in bags' to underprivileged, abused and medically-ill children across Asia.

Through the meeting, we discovered that the role of ambassadors that Blessings wished for us to take up would/might require the following actions from us:

1. Conduct a campaign in NTU to raise awareness of the Blessings In A Bag cause
2. Liaise with the school to obtain permission to raise funds and collect donations for Blessings
3. Liaise with the International Student Centre so that exchange students leaving the country can donate their items to Blessings
4. Liase with the halls to seek approval to place the Blessings donation collection bins in their halls

We also got to know about other programmes conducted by Blessings, such as their Scribbly Friends movement (http://scribblyfriends.org/)

We will be making a trip down to their headquarters soon to know more about what they do, so hopefully we'll remember to take a picture then!

Details are in the making, so I'll just leave you with Darren's email as a summary of the things to come :)

Dear Ming Hui, Diana & Victor

On behalf on the Blessings in a Bag Team, we would like to thank you for taking your precious time for the sharing today. We really appreciate the kind gesture. ^_^

As mentioned this afternoon, we'll be sending you a copy of our (1) detailed ambassador programme proposal, as well as a (2) list of donation items we need before this week draws to an end. We'll additionally try to draft a (3) publicity programme to raise Blessings in a Bag's awareness amongst NTU students if time permits. (So much to do, so little time lol)

Hopefully, things will take off from there.

It has been a pleasure meeting you peeps and stay in touch!

Cheers,
Darren :)

Blessings In A Bag partnership

We are pleased to announce an upcoming partnership with Blessings in a Bag! I emailed them previously, but they did not reply. So it was heartening when I received a reply the second time round! The main points of the partnership are in bold. A meeting should be scheduled sometime in August. Stay tuned for more updates!

Hi Diana

Apologies for this late reply. Emily forwarded me your email and on behalf of the team, we would like to express our gratitude to hear from you and your friends who are willing to help us with our cause.

We couldn't be more excited with the help that you offered, because we always have Blessings Bags to distribute be it to our beneficiaries or travelers under our Blessings in a Bag Movement program. Our main focus is to help as many underprivileged children as possible and we would not have done it without the kind help from people like you. So, feel free to let us know how many bags you guys will be able to bring over to Cambodia. :)

Also, we would like to know whether you guys are interested to be our ambassadors under Blessings in a Bag Ambassadors program... Maybe it will be best if we can arrange for a meet up, at your convenient time, or you can always come down to Serene Centre to meet the core team, as well as our volunteers, on any Sunday to discuss this better... :)

Looking forward to hear from you again and thank you again for contacting us!

Cheers!
Arbella
Street Team Coordinator
Blessings in a Bag


www.blessingsinabag.org
Follow us on TWITTER: twitter.com/blessingsinabag


-- You can't do great things with small love but you can do small things with great love -- Mother Teresa


--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Diana Yusoff <dianayusoff@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 11:49 AM
Subject: Wish to be involved
To: emilyteng@blessingsinabag.com
Cc: blessingsinabag@gmail.com, Tan Ming Hui <tan.minghui86@gmail.com>


Dear Emily,

I chanced upon your website through a magazine feature article, and
thought that your cause is very meaningful,

My friends and I are a group of students from NTU, intending to go
down to Cambodia in December for a water filtration project under the
Youth Expedition Project (YEP).

We wish to participate in your Blessings In a Bag programme, be it to
distribute bags to the children in the village in Cambodia, or to
provide some of our manpower/assistance if you have any upcoming
events or logistical needs.

Please let us know how we can be involved. Perhaps we can meet up some
time in the first week of August to discuss this further.

Additionally, through the YEP Leadership Workshop, I've come to know
other leaders going to places like Batam, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam,
who are likely to be able to participate in your programme as well. Do
let me know your needs and whether you need me to link you up with
them.

--
Best regards,
Nur Diana Yusoff
Nanyang Technological University
NTU Students In Free Enterprise (NTU SIFE)

Liaison with CROAP

I had just sent an email to CROAP, our Cambodian NGO, to suggest the few areas that we can work on. We are very fortunate to have a very receptive local NGO. In addition to the water facilities, I intend to plan for a few more meaningful activities for our team. Probably will have to check out with CROAP. Otherwise, we can probably link up with other NGOs for mini-projects.

The following is one of the email which i sent to CROAP.

Dear Father,

From the discussion with my university, we would like to suggest a few areas in which we can work on to improve the quality of the water.

Firstly, the water in the existing pond is rather murky. It is likely to be due to the type of sand/soil in the area which caused the water to be unclear.

Instead of relying on the existing dug pond, in which water seeps through the soil from the river to the pond, we suggest building a separate concrete pond(attached as Pond design.ppt) with a drain to channel water from the river to the pond. We can add in different layers of filters in the drain, so that when water is filtered as it travels through the drain.

With the concrete pond, we can directly use the water from the pond for washing purposes.

Secondly, we suggest building a simple water filtration concrete unit whereby water is filtered from the top and clean water is collected at the bottom.

Water will seep through layers of filters. I have attached a sketch(Blueprints.zip) of the proposed filtration unit. It may seems rather confusing.

I will try to obtain pictures of a built one, so that it can help you to better visualize.

With the filtration unit, water produced is likely to be portable, but it will take a longer time. Therefore, water for washing should be taken from the pond whereas water for drinking should be taken from the concrete filtration unit.

Our team hopes to build the above two facilities with the support of CROAP.

What do you think of our proposed solution?

Please feel free to clarify with us.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Journey as a Leader

On Saturday and Sunday last week, Ming Hui and I went for the second part of our YEP Leadership training conducted by Blossom. It was held at Ubin, where we had to stayover for a whole night. I will be posting up the pictures after this!

Overall, I would say that the leadership training has been a real eye-opener. I feel especially strongly on this, because I myself have never assumed such a big leadership role in my entire life. Possibly it is because of my lack of confidence in myself as a leader in previous years that made me decide not to assume any leadership responsibilities.

However, I decided to grab the opportunity to co-lead in Project Waterloo because I've decided for myself that this is something I would like to try out. I realised over the years that I've slowly been regained more confidence in myself and my abilities, and although I am still lacking in many areas, at least I know I am trying.

Being a leader, as I soon found out from the camp, is not easy at all. Some people are born leaders. Others, like myself, will have to put in more effort. For example, the feedback I received from the camp will be useful because such simulations have made me truly realise the enormity of our responsibilities. It is more than making sure that everything is going according to plan; it is the realisation that we (me and Minghui) are responsible for the lives of our participants.

How I realised this was during the traumatic Emergency Evacuation simulation, where two casualties (played by Yingyi and Chit Chin) had to be rescued. Chit Chin was 'bleeding profusely' almost dying, and Yingyi was supposed to play the role of the irritating girl with the tummyache who refuses to be helped and keeps on screaming away.

The truth was, when the simulation started, I was at a loss amidst all the chaos. Yingyi played her role too well, screaming away like nobody's business, and truthfully, the screams were so jarring they were almost painful and way too realistic. I stayed back to oversee her whilst Minghui went to help the other fella.

THE GIRL DID NOT WANT TO BE HELPED. Every question asked was answered with a scream. It did not help either that the first aider was at a loss too. It was then and there that as a leader, I realised that I should be more decisive and snappy at making decisions - to take control of the situation and to ensure that the participants are given the medical attention that they need. To make the proper calls when necessary and to ensure that overenthusiastic bystanders do not get into the way of the medical attention that is required to be given. These are just some things that books on leadership cannot teach you.

Here are other things that we learnt from the simulation:

1. Bystanders who have nothing to do should be shooed away. Otherwise, give them a role to do beforehand e.g. runners.
2. Have other team mates in charge of roles such as telecom (to call up the relevant parties like ISOS, transport etc) and observer (to take down the evaluations of the patient by the first aider as records for future use).
3. EAP map should be prepared so that the protocol during emergencies are known by the other members, and the leader can immediately refer to it in the event of an emergency
4. Contact numbers of relevant parties should also be included in the EAP for fast and easy reference
5. The leader must scold people when necessary to ensure that he is in control of the situation.
6. The Epipen can be used to prolong the life of an anaphylactic patient,until help arrives
7. ISOS hotline can be called in the event that the first aider cannot manage, as they will be able to provide sound advice when required. Leaders should practise calling ISOS hotline pre-trip.
8. Provide the insurance number to ISOS so that they can determine if there will be reimbursements for any medical services utilised.
9. Certain places such as TTSH Traveller's Clinic and NUH international clinic will be able to provide advice on jabs required for each specific country.
10. Doing RAMS (Risk Assessment & Management System) will prevent the need to face an emergency evacuation scenario.

Other things I learnt:

RAMS is a good methodology to assess the risks on-site and take the necessary actions to prevent risks.

Step 1: Identify the risks.

Step 2: Evaluate and assess the risks by drawing a chart with four quadrants. For the quadrant with high severity (if occured) and high likelihood, it cannot be Tolerated

Step 3: Manage the risks through the 4 Ts: Tolerate, Transfer, Treat or Terminate

Also a duty of care list should be crafted so that we can be better prepared for the trip.

During my facilitation session as well, I learnt that it is important for both leaders to sync and provide a short and sweet summary that would stick in the minds of participants. Negative feedback, no matter how painful to hear, should be seen positively as they are good learning points for personal growth :)

Participants can be made to use an object or a photo to describe how they feel about their YEP venue.

All in all, the trip was a fulfilling one. I discovered more about the other leaders during the segment titled Learning Journey where we each had to share a significant event in our lives through a drawing.

Ubin was a shocker when we first arrived due to the poor maintenance of the place where we stayed (an Ubin villager's). However, I managed to get used to it and got to know some cute animals as well. One experience that I will always remember is the loud noise of the rain hitting the zinc roof of our building, and the rain slowly drizzling down the holey roof.

I was afraid the roof would collapse! :p