With Singapore's changing demographics and the harsh social and economic pressures of the modern world impinging on our society, the demand for both structured and voluntary social services has grown exponentially. However the social problems and the social needs have also been increasing. Some of the social problems are the assistance of less fortunate children like children with disabilities, in need of shelter, suffering from terminal illnesses, suffering from abuse and at risk. Also problems like teenagers sexual identity, relationship problems are also challenges that the society are facing. These people need generous donation and recognitions from the public. But the recent charity saga by the national kidney foundation overshadowed, the conception of charity have been misunderstood by the public. Thus most of the charity organisations which help these needy people did faced difficulties in rejections by the public. When I was doing charity sales with an organisation called we share-care society, I did approached to some parents bringing their children and asked for donations. But they were not convinced by the organisations and they did not want to donate. My first thought was that they should donate as an educational lesson to their children that they should also help these children and also to learn how to be kind hearted. Also these adults felt that these people should be taken care and helped by the government, and not by the public. At that moment I was disappointed.
These children's emotions are being attacked and wounded by our environment, relationships and life experience. Some of these children were mocked by their classmates who are healthy and they were being hurt and were unwilling to face the world. Even some of the children were hurt by their parents who constantly quarrel or divorced because of the unstable status they were in like financial problems. They really need the assistance of a correct perception of themselves with character development and understanding the emotions that are within them, so that they can achieve emotional wellness even when faced with advertises. The teenagers were affected by the many wrong messages about the beliefs of sex, sexual identity, relationship and intimacy sent by the mass media. They need proper character education even in area of sex, help them to learn and develop skills to deal with wrong conceptions about sex at their age so that they can make choices about their behaviour and protect themselves from harm.
My goals are to create public awareness of charitable causes, inculcate positive attitudes and character towards these less fortunate children, and also providing the essential financial and educational assistance through sponsorship for children adversely affected. I also help these children build up character with integrity, and to be equipped with essential and useful knowledge when they step out to the society in the future. As a student volunteer of the We share-care society, I went to help out in the annual outdoor charity sales cum fund raising which is to sell perfumes for ten dollars as donation. All the donations for the charity will stand four percent of the financial income.
The strategy is to have fund raising activities of selling souvenirs, designed postcards and drawings which are made by the children. The pros are not only helped the beneficiaries under the financial support but also to help these children to gain recognitions and confidence from the public. The cons are the donations from the fundraising activities only stand a small proportion of the financial income as these covers the supplies, materials and the venues rental.
The things I need to do are conducting lessons for the children to do the souvenirs and drawings. The resources are papers, pencils, crayons, colouring tools for the drawings and souvenirs. The persons to contact are the coordinators of the organisation, volunteers, master character education trainer and certified counselling practitioner. The timeline is about three to five months to conduct the fundraising activities.
Volunteering helps me to build up my determination and persistence to help those needy children, to satisfy my life mission statement. This also helps me to exercise love and compassion in the provision of assistance to the needy people through free enrichment classes, proper character training, and the meeting of tangible needs like grocery and tuition/school fees. I also learn from volunteering to discern what is good and bad, which is from the character of discernment.
Volunteering effectively reinforce compassion, which is helped these needy people with care and concern. It also reinforced perseverance which is to help and not giving up on these needy people the whole day when doing the charity sales. It reinforced cooperation with other volunteers to make a difference to help these people together.