Nanyang Technological University

Ang Hong has been an active community and social work activist since his junior college days way back in 2007.

He started his volunteer work in the Ci Yuan Youth Executive Committee (YEC) in 2007 and has held various leadership positions through the years such as that of General Secretary and Vice Chairman. He is currently the Chairman of the YEC. In these various positions, Ang Hong guided more than 80 youth members in project management and leadership skills and organised various large-scale community events to address various social issues such as high rise littering and environmental conservation education.

In 2008, Ang Hong pioneered environmental education and outreach through organizing one of the largest youth environmental events, National Youth EnvirOlympics Challenge (NYEC). The annual event is into its 6th year in 2014, and reaches out to over 40,000 members of public each year.

The anti-littering campaign that Ang Hong organized in 2010 mobilised 300 student volunteers to reach out to 12,000 families across a 6-month period. High rise littering rate dropped by more than 80%, whereas cigarette butt litter was reduced by 40%.

In 2011, Ang Hong organised a Mental Health Advocate Program, a campaign to increase youth awareness of mental wellness in Singapore. Working with Silver Ribbon Singapore and Bukit Gombak Groups Home, the campaign allowed 50 tertiary students the opportunity of learning and understanding more about mental wellness through a 12-hour mental health first aid course and interactions with mental health patients.

In recent years, Ang Hong has initiated partnerships with various voluntary welfare organisations such as the National Kidney Foundation and Covenant Family Service Centre to provide volunteering opportunities to more than 200 student volunteers and benefitting more than 70 families.

For his outstanding contributions to the community, Ang Hong is the proud recipient of various awards:

(1) National Environment Agency (NEA) Youth Environmental Envoy (2009 to present)
(2) Bayer Young Environmental Envoy (2010 to present)
(3) HSBC National Youth Achievement Award - Youth Environmental Award (2011)

Winning these awards gave Ang Hong even more opportunities to extend his activist work beyond Singapore. He was nominated by NEA to represent Singapore in the ASEAN+3 Youth Environmental Forum in Brunei Darussalumin 2010 and the China ASEAN Green Youth Seminar in Beijing in 2013. Ang Hong also represented Singapore in the Bayer Young Environmental Envoy Global Field Trip in November 2010, where he shared Singapore's environmental best practices with 70 other delegates from 18 nations.

Ang Hong's extensive experience in community work was recognised when he was selected to be part of the evaluation panel of the National Youth Council Young Changemaker Grant where he played a critical role in evaluating more than 80 seed community project proposals, provided administration support in deciding project funding and mentoring community projects to ensure that objectives are achieved.

More photographs

Back to top

Being a passionate volunteer, Wei Hern has been a member of NTU Welfares Service Club (WSC) - Volunteer Management since his first year in NTU. He was given opportunities to work with different kind of beneficiaries such as underprivileged children, the elderly, visually handicapped, dyslexic children and psoriasis patients.

In 2013, Wei Hern took up the role of Chairperson of Volunteer Management and organised various large scale volunteering events for NTU students to participate and contribute in a meaningful way. He initiated a series of new volunteering opportunities and led a team of 36 undergraduates to volunteer and perform in Swami Home last September so that they can have a better understanding about people with dementia.

In addition, Wei Hern also spearheaded and led a team to organize Kids' World 2013 - a 3-day camp dedicated for 100 under-privileged children. In an effort to create more platforms for students to volunteer, Wei Hern will also be organising a new volunteering event - The Amazing Race @ Bugis dedicated for dyslexic youths later this year.

During his 4 years in the Volunteer Management portfolio, Wei Hern has also been actively involved in many events held by other WSC portfolios, such as the elderly home visits at Asian Women's Welfare Association (AWWA) and the "Eye Am Aware" event dedicated for the visually handicapped.

Wei Hern considers himself to be fortunate to have grown up in an environment where he has been given plenty of opportunities to thrive. He feels that he ought to contribute back to the society. Doing voluntary work adds meaning to his life; knowing that the help he offers goes towards improving the lives of the needy further motivates him to succeed in life, so that he can reach out to more people in need. Wei Hern has plans to continue volunteering even after he graduates from NTU.

More photographs

Back to top

Selina has always believed that while some people are indeed born extraordinary, everyone can be equally extraordinary by doing things from their hearts to be their ordinary selves in an extraordinary way. She makes the most of her ordinary life by actively contributing to the community.

As a girl guide in secondary school, Selina organised events and constantly worked with her local community. She was the overall coordinator of several Patrol Leaders' Training Camps and Annual Training Camps that train youths to take on leadership roles, and a member in Project Ohana - a student-initiated project funded by the Ministry of Health to bridge the interaction of the young and old in Whampoa through activities like health screenings and spring-cleaning. Selina continued to serve as a Youth Unit Leader upon graduation.

In 2010, Selina led a team of 50 volunteers from Temasek Polytechnic to Cambodia, where she coordinated the programme for an orphanage. Selina embarked on another expedition project in 2011, where she helped to co-manage a team of 20 volunteers on a two-week service learning trip to Cambodia again. The team canvassed for funds of up to SGD10 000 to build wells for 7 families, purchase and construct 2 mobile libraries, distribute commodities packs to rural villages, and design a modular English book to educate 200 children in various orphanages.

In the same year, Selina was awarded the National Youth Achievement Award (NYAA) Gold Award. In that journey, Selina volunteered for marathons (e.g. SAAB City Duathlon, Run for Hope, Keppel Safra Quadrathlon), and community events (e.g. Yellow Ribbon Project Roadshow, Clean and Green Carnival, AWWA Elderly Services, Singapore Cancer Society Roadshow). She also chaired Project H, an initiative by National Heritage Board to raise awareness of Singapore's culture through educational road shows.

To further get in touch with the ground, Selina joined the National Youth Achievement Award (NYAA) Gold Award Holders' Alumni (GAHA) Executive Committee in 2012. The NYAA GAHA was installed by Mr Heng Swee Keat, Minister for Education and Chairman of NYAA Advisory Board, and was conferred several accolades such as the Singapore Youth Award (SYA) for Community and Youth Services. The latest project that Selina accomplished was the NYAA-GAHA-ITE Million-Metre Charity Run - a fund-raising run organised to raise funds for the ITE Endowment Fund. Her past appointments include Overall Coordinator of GAHA Orientation and GAHA Year End Party, Chairperson of Youth-Elderly Engagement Program titled "Grandparents' Celebration at Gardens by the Bay", and participant of "World Youth Alliance Asia Pacific Emerging Leaders Conference 2013" and other miscellaneous events.

More photographs

Back to top

Jenson has been an active volunteer since his days in Junior College, during which he was part of a voluntary tuition programme for at-risk secondary school students. He discovered his passion for community work when he had the opportunity to go on a humanitarian trip to Li Jiang, China, in 2006.

During his time in NTU, Jenson was involved in a range of volunteering activities, and actively advocated for socially responsible causes. Under the NTU Welfare Services Club, he was a regular volunteer with Regular Service Project (Friends of Children) (RSPFOC). As a volunteer in RSPFOC, Jenson gave tuition to underprivileged children on a weekly basis and organized games for them. On top of being involved in RSPFOC, he was also the Logistics Officer for Camp OutReach, a project that reaches out to the local hearing-impaired community. In Camp OutReach, Jenson was responsible for the movement of logistics during the camp held in Vietnam in June 2011, and for the welfare of the hearing-impaired participants. In 2012, he took on the role of Chairperson for Camp OutReach and advocated for the further empowerment of the hearing-impaired community. His actions resulted in an increased focus on the community service element in Camp OutReach, whereby the hearing- impaired participants were further empowered to do community service work.

The year after, Jenson was elected the President of the NTU Welfare Services Club. During his term in office, he oversaw the volunteering activities of the entire club and ensured that the welfare of the club's beneficiaries were taken care of. He also pushed for more social entrepreneurship-­-oriented activities to be carried out, resulting in the club having a successful social entrepreneurship event during that year. Furthermore, being a person who proactively looks out for socially responsible initiatives, he facilitated the official establishment of a new volunteering initiative called Operation Hope, a project that benefits children suffering from chronic illnesses and conditions.

On top of his work with the underprivileged, Jenson is also committed to raising awareness of the importance of volunteerism in the community. In 2012, he represented Singapore as a student delegate in the ASEAN Youth Volunteer Programme conference held at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, where he met with youth volunteer leaders from other ASEAN.

More photographs

Back to top

"A social activist with an entrepreneurial and adventurous spirit" sums up pretty much Jiaxin's value system and what she has been doing during her 4 years at NTU.

As a business student, Jiaxin believes very strongly in the positive power of business. That belief has motivated her during her involvement with Enactus. Enactus is an international organization with a focus on social entrepreneurship. In her first two years at Enactus, she helped found and was the Operations Director at project Gourmet Guru. Gourmet Guru Ltd is a social enterprise that creates platforms for low-income homemakers to become gainfully employed through commercializing their culinary skills and providing training. From 2011 till now the project has brought $36,000 to 6 women.

Jiaxin's contributions are in the operations of Gourmet Guru and the training of homemakers. She built the revenue process and designed the controls, trained 6 homemakers on presentation skills and classroom management, and assisted them in conducting 40 over cooking lessons from June 2011 to June 2012. During her Year 3 & 4, she took up a bigger responsibility of overseeing the 6 projects at Enactus. Her main responsibility was to monitor the project performance and mentor and assist the project leaders in project management. Till June 2013, Enactus NTU has achieved an economic impact up to S$170,000 to 66 beneficiaries in total. In June 2013, the Enactus NTU team won the champion at the National Enactus Competition and represented Singapore at Enactus World Cup held in Cancun, Mexico in September 2013.

Jiaxin also volunteers at various community development projects. She has participated and organized in the subsequent year the Youth Expedition Project to Cambodia. She partnered with the local NGO Sustainable Cambodia in Cambodia and designed a 2-week service learning project in December 2013 for 20 NTU students to volunteer at its local education and agriculture projects and learn through serving overseas community. Many members describe the experience as life-changing.

In summer 2013, Jiaxin spent two months in Tanzania at the local NGO Environmental Development Care. She led a project on raising the local environmental awareness. Her team completed a research on local environment and designed a workshop on waste management. The team also motivated more than 700 students from 18 local schools in Tanzania to protect their environment through interactive presentations. They also successfully garnered support from the Mayor and several local companies for City Cleaning Day.

More photographs

Back to top

Tam has been an active volunteer since she was in Junior College. Apart from her study time, Tam enjoyed spending time with Primary and Secondary school students to help them with their studies. She also held a few small outings with school students to introduce to them different kinds of small businesses in Singapore. Since then, Tam has realised her interests in entrepreneurship, volunteerism and in promoting entrepreneurship among youths.

Her interests have led her to pursue her social entrepreneurship path in 2011. She first joined Gourmet Guru social enterprise to help the low-income homemakers in Singapore to commercialise their cooking skill to earn extra income. Working under Business Development department of Gourmet Guru, Tam joined Start-up@ Singapore competition in 2012 and won Second-Runner Up for Social Enterprise Category. The cash prize was all used to expand Gourmet Guru to improve the social impact of the business.

Tam was also part of the Welfare Service Club and visited the senior citizens at AWWA Old Folks' Home and Ren Ci weekly. The experience with the senior citizens became the motivation for Tam to co-found a social enterprise for the senior citizens in 2013. Her social enterprise aims to resolve the issue of aging population by encouraging the active involvement of the private sector in creating IT solutions for the silver-haired population. This can potentially reduce the country's over-reliance on the government to resolve the aging population issue, which in turns enables the senior citizens to lead a truly fulfilling life. Partnering with RSVP, the Organization for Senior Volunteers, Tam and her team have successfully organized 10 IT talks for senior citizens to raise their awareness about IT. Her social enterprise has received support from Enactus Singapore, Council for Third Ages and iDA for its innovative approach of solving the social problem. Her team has also set up a Hotline for senior citizens having IT problems, and contributed to the success of the recent Singapore Silver Infocomm Day.

Sponsored by National Voluntary & Philanthropy Centre, Tam received training from the HUB-DBS-INSEAD Enterprise Bootcamp to improve her social enterprise business model further. Using the knowledge of Design Thinking and Business Modelling for Start-ups obtained from the Bootcamp, Tam committed much her time to conduct internal training with her own team afterwards.

Tam is currently working under the Fast Forward Committee, an Enactus Singapore initiative to equip students in Polytechnics and Universities with the Start-ups Business Tools and promote social entrepreneurship among youths. 

More photographs

Back to top

Akhand is a firm believer of Mahatma Gandhi's saying - 'You must be the change you wish to see in the world'. Since his childhood, he has learnt things by witnessing them instead of getting motivated remotely by external agents. When he was in primary school, Akhand has been involved in school level activities like collecting donations for old people with no support, "best-out-of-waste" competitions and environmental field trips. Also, having seen the impact of education on anyone, he has tried to impart it to anyone who needs it. His efforts include teaching his family's servant's daughter and helping in organising an art competition for the students of a school run for under-privileged.

During his later years of schooling, Akhand has been part of the Youth Congress and created awareness about a variety of social issues. He also was a part of an anti-drug abuse campaign and addressed an approximate audience of 500 students and teachers to increase awareness of how drug abuse starts, what the effects are, how bad the consequences could get and what exit options are available.

While in Singapore, Akhand has been part of a variety of activities with social intent. He was a part of AIESEC's Green Entrepreneurship project and learnt the role of Entrepreneurship in creating a long-term and sustainable social impact. His subsequent and favourite involvement was with the Red Cross where he was involved in their multiple community services activities. The most fulfilling experience he ever had was with the residents of the Red Cross Home for Disabled, while having a celebration of Chinese New Year with them. He was also active in organising donation drives, being a blood donor and also in their fund-raising concert.

Akhand's long term goal is to create a long-lasting social impact on society. Having seen little kids suffer from hunger, he strongly feels for the cause. To address the issue of Food Security in the Urban Slums, he made a significant contribution to UNN, a social enterprise that has gathered appreciation from the community and has supported by Syngenta, a multi-national corporation. He has also been invited by the firm to attend a global event in Jakarta on Food Security and share his ideas with others from governments, unions, NGOs and media.

More photographs

Back to top