Nanyang Technological University

My father had kidney failure when I was 15. Ever since then, I decided to volunteer at NKF to learn more about the disease and how I could help him. My experiences there taught me that a little bit of time, care and kindness could go a long way in helping someone out. This inspired me to:

In fact, these 3Ss have been my guiding motto for the past 8 years.

1. To serve my community

Giving back and passing the kindness forward is what motivated me to volunteer in my personal capacity. Some initiatives include:

2019 - 2020: Cargill student consultant, to enhance environmental efforts by Cargill Tropical Palm, a subsidiary under Cargill Holdings
2020 - 2021: Runner-up for WSC Impact for Ideathon, to propose new ideas to combat elderly isolation
2021 - Present: NBS Mentoring Society, mentored juniors for career guidance
2022 - Present: UPO, peer tutor for Business Analytics module

2. To spread the joy of volunteerism

A big dream of mine is to encourage others to partake in the joy of volunteerism. Alone we can do so little; yet together we can do so much. Hence, I seek out opportunities to connect the dots and find innovative ways for people to make volunteering a part of their lives.

2018 - 2022: NTU Welfare Services Club, active leadership participation
2019 - 2020: SLDP, 30th Council, learn and grow further as a volunteer leader in school
2019 - 2021: Conjunct Consulting, build capacity for non-profits via pro-bono strategy consulting services

3. To sustain a volunteering movement
What is the point of dreaming and seeking, if I am not also doing it? I strive to follow through on what I sought and dreamt, by driving and sustaining a volunteering movement.

2020 - Present: Skills For Good
As the co-founder of Skills For Good, a non-profit that utilizes technology to encourage skills-based volunteering for students to contribute their knowledge to the social sector, we have helped over 61 organisations launch over 300 skills-based volunteering projects. Skills For Good is about providing an alternative form of volunteering, that allows for people to contribute based on what they do best. Read more at:

2021 - Present: Cyber Youth Singapore, Council Member of local charity that aims to educate youths on digitalization to prepare for a digital future. I joined the organization to help youths to discover greater use cases and applications for technology in the social sector. Read more at:

More photographs

Back to top

I wanted to challenge my limits in University, hence I decided to continue my regular volunteering, in hopes of being able make an impact amongst the beneficiaries as well as NTU’s cohort. With my experience volunteering with the elderly in secondary school and polytechnic, I decided to join NTU's Welfare Services Club (WSC) Regular Service Project (RSP) Elders. WSC provides voluntary activities and social work for NTU students. And as the name suggests, Elders focuses on volunteering with the elderly in a bid to bridge the generation gap.

WSC RSP Elders - Subcommittee Member
In my first year, I participated actively in RSP Elders. I helped out with weekly befriending sessions at centers, festive celebrations, and portfolio bonding sessions. I wanted to be more involved on the back-end planning of the volunteering work, and hence also joined the newly created sub-committee. There, I was given the opportunity to take charge of curating activities for our festive celebrations, such as creating pictorial games and organizing logistics.

WSC RSP Elders - Chairperson
In my second year, I decided to maximise my potential and stepped up as Chairperson, where I managed the portfolio of 150 members and alumni. In my year, the covid-19 pandemic was in full-swing and we had to change our operations to continue to continue serving our cause whilst also accommodating the new regulations. The committee came up with the idea of getting Elders volunteers to create handmade handicrafts, before transporting said crafts to our service users for final assembly. We also adapted to the pandemic by introducing e-volunteering programs to engage our service users, and filmed videos covering the different festive celebrations at festive places for their viewing.

#CanOneLah! Co-Founder
Wanting to make a bigger difference, I co-founded the #CanOneLah! campaign with a team of final-year Communication undergraduates from NTU Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information. With the objective of educating the low-income seniors in Singapore on digital literacy, we launched multiple sessions of digital literacy classes led by RSP Elders for service users from AWWA, Xin Yuan, and Care Corner.

Press Release:
-https://tnp.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/ntu-groups-digital-workshops-get-seniors-saying-canonelah
-https://www.todayonline.com/gen-y-speaks/gen-y-speaks-my-mum-struggled-tech-she-inspired-me-start-digital-literacy-campaign

WSC - President
In my final year, I wanted to explore different groups of service users and make a bigger difference in the planning front and execution phases of events. I stretched my limits and took charge of WSC, a club of 19 diverse portfolios and 1500 undergraduates with a strong alumni presence, and executed WSC-wide events where volunteers, regardless of portfolios, can participate in. I also represented WSC on the Student Union council, where we had discussions with the senior management to improve on club processes and student life in NTU.

During my term, together with my management committee, we managed to execute 3 WSC-wide events. These events focused on the Migrant Worker community, the Janitors in NTU, and the elderly in Singapore. During our Migrants Worker Day event, we partnered with the Ministry of Manpower and put together a carnival where migrant workers could rest and relax at with their peers. For our Janitors in NTU, we organized a festive Chinese New Year celebration and helped to raise awareness about their contributions and daily activities. For our last event, we brought our elderly service users from Brickland for an excursion to Gardens by the Bay, to encourage befriending between the different generations.

Video:

More photographs

Back to top

For a long time in university, I had always felt I could do something more beyond schoolwork. I also yearned to give back to Singapore, a society that had adopted me and supported my JC and university studies through scholarships. I just didn’t know how, until I got to work with the Viva Foundation for Children with Cancer.

My volunteering association with Viva began with the St Jude-Viva Forum (SJVF) 2022 that brings together doctors and nurses worldwide to share best practices in cancer care for children. I was called to help with in December 2021, and my first task was to come up with a structure to incorporate more volunteers, so we could work on more complicated tasks together and complement the full-time staff. After distributing responsibilities, I took charge of outreach and researching contacts around the world, and to coordinate tasks across teams. I also provided technical insights into revamping the Viva website using easy-to-use tools like Wix, that also allowed us to manage our large contact lists. These studies involved understanding the foundation’s usage requirements and comparing vendors to find an optimal solution.

Our research of contacts focused on compiling a list of medical councils, doctors’ and nurses’ associations, medical colleges and cancer institutes. This was a challenge as it was often difficult to navigate websites in different languages, and there was often no single list to look up. We focused on ASEAN, India and China, owing to their proximity and similar time zones. Having split up countries amongst ourselves to manage the workload, we set about adding entities with their emails to the master list. Through this outreach, we hoped to reach out to a large and diverse group of medical professionals and were glad to know that the SJVF received 6000 this year, especially with greater engagement from India and China.

Another skill set I got to hone was public speaking. During the conference itself, I got to host one session, and assisted with two others. This involved introducing the session’s topic, and speakers, managing questions for the panel to answer, and finally to conclude each session. This was a unique opportunity to watch the world’s foremost experts on cancer care describe their work, and I am grateful to have been able to introduce them.

After the successful SJVF, I am now focusing my efforts on designing a set of coding classes for children who are supported by the foundation. Through these sessions I hope to inspire them to take up computing as a career or a course of study, by exposing them to as many topics in computing as possible over 5 sessions. In these 2-hour sessions, I hope to introduce children to programming basics, data science, artificial intelligence and application development. Each session would use a sample problem with a solution prepared in advance, and an application problem that children would apply their sample solution to. Each session would also give students the room to explore the topics by themselves, with the best solutions potentially being showcased in the final session. This scheme is set to start in the middle of June 2022.

More photographs

Back to top

Since young, I have been taught that I should give back to society just like how I received it. My family would visit Sheng Siong supermarket monthly to purchase the necessities required at Bo Tien Temple (an elderly home) and donate them. 

Volunteering Experiences:
Volunteer at TOUCH Young Arrows [Since 2017]
TOUCH Young Arrows is one of the services provided under the TOUCH Integrated Family Group, where we provide academic coaching and facilitate values-driven activities for children from 5 to 12 years old. Initially, I joined because I wanted to contribute back to society, and I realise that the services offered by TOUCH Young Arrows fit perfectly with what I can contribute which is English and Math knowledge. I have then volunteered regularly on a weekly basis since my polytechnic days. This year marks my 5th year with the organization and in this span of 5 years, I have seen the children I first taught in 2017, graduate from primary school, with better academic results and a better character. 

Honorary Officer at National Police Cadet Corps [Since 2019]
I joined the National Police Cadet Corps (NPCC) from the NTU-NPCC Club as a uniformed member. In December 2019, I participated in the Honorary Officer Basic Training Course to be equipped with skills to help secondary school children grow, in their character and learning. Since then, I was attached to Yuhua Secondary School, which is also the secondary school I came from, NPCC to nurture the cadets and cadet inspectors. While the COVID-19 pandemic happened and affected some of the activities, I contributed in other ways such as setting up a Yuhua NPCC website to provide easier transfer of information for online CCA sessions in 2020. In 2021, when the pandemic restrictions eased and CCAs are allowed to conduct physically, I managed to conduct the Leadership & Mentoring Skills Course (LMSC) 2021 for the Secondary 2 cadets. In the course, they learnt skills such as leadership, teamwork, effective communication, lesson planning, and methods of instruction, which could be applied beyond the NPCC environment. Moving forward, with the resumption of physical activities, I am currently part of the LMSC 2022 committee in the area, conducting the course for 6 NPCC school units. Recently, I have also joined the Camp Resilience enrichment programme, representing the area to participate, gain knowledge and train the rest of the volunteers within my area.

More photographs

Back to top

Darryl Ang Wei Zhuang

More photographs

Back to top

I have contributed actively to the community throughout my journey in NTU despite the academic workload and internships. I believe that for a society to advance, no one should be left behind. Hence, I always seek for opportunities within my means to aid others. In times of an economic downturn or a pandemic that we have been through, there is a greater need for us to step up and render a helping hand to others. Some highlights of my contributions are as follows:

CareNights is an evening support programme for children aged 6 to 14 years  on weekdays. The programme journeys with children to enhance their social and psychological development.

As an individual who is passionate about helping others within my means, the most direct form of help I am able to provide is via educating the underprivileged kids. Helping them break out of the adverse childhood experience by providing a safe space and being a big brother to them, being a pillar of support for these children is extremely enriching.

The children are better able to regulate their emotions, discover their strengths and build healthy life-skills to strengthen their personal growth and make meaningful contributions to society.

As part of the Ci Yuan Youth Network, we organise events and plan for ways to engage the youths within the neighbourhood. This is done so via having regular updates with the team and also taking ownership in planning for large scale events that involves the neighbourhood. The youth network also regularly engages with the Member of Parliament for the neighbourhood as well as the executive committee for events planning.

Through my involvement, I hope to value-add the community that I have grew up in and give back to my neighbourhood.

A student-led mentoring society in NBS committed to nurturing and empowering future generations of NBS students. The club aims to nurture and empower mentees to define their future and unlock their full potential by providing effective and sustained guidance from an extensive network of passionate mentors.

There are two primary reasons why I joined the NBS Mentoring Society. The first is to be able to give back to the community after receiving help from my fellow seniors when I was a freshman. The idea of paying it forward after receiving assistance is an important virtue that I hold dearly. The second reason is to emphasise to the juniors that everyone is capable of succeeding. Everyone's definition of success is different and I want to help my mentees to be the best version of themselves

SG Clean Ambassadors aims to rally stakeholders and members of the public to do their part, by adopting good personal habits and social responsibility, to raise standards of cleanliness and public hygiene in Singapore and safeguard public health.

It was during the circuit breaker when I decided to volunteer and went out to neighbourhoods spreading the importance of preventing the breeding of Aedes mosquitoes to keep families safe at home. It just dawned on me that during tough times, I should step up and serve the community to advocate for the need to stay safe and healthy during the pandemic.

It is envisioned that the efforts of the volunteers towards the SG Clean campaign will instil a national "keep clean culture", where keeping Singapore clean is an integral part of our lives.

More photographs

Back to top

Tang Jian Tin

I still remembered the first time I involved in volunteering was in secondary school, when I became a helper in a meditation camp and stay overnight at a temple. Since then, I fell in love with volunteerism and am satisfied of how my actions can benefit others.

Throughout my journey in NTU, I continued to contribute towards the social needs of the local and international community through numerous initiatives.

1. Rotaract Club of NTU
RACNTU is a club that strives to engage members in the field of community service, with an added emphasis on personal development. We initiated various projects and events to raise the awareness of underprivileged community in the local community and to provide a platform for members to enhance their professional and soft skills.

AY2021/22: Vice President (Support) - Some memorable events I had supervise and oversee include:

AY2020/21: Director of Business and Finance Division - Oversee fundraising event for AWARE to raise awareness about importance of gender equality in NTU student populace and encourage female or male students to develop their potential to the fullest

AY2019/20: Subcommittee of Business and Finance Division - Organized fundraising event for TWC2 to raise awareness about migrant worker issues amongst the student populace

2. MiGreat Brothers Project - Organizing Committee (Dec 2021 - Feb 2022)
The MiGreat Brothers Project is an endeavor by RACNTU aimed at:
i) better understand and appreciating the invaluable contributions made by Migrant Brothers to Singapore society
ii) encourages the local community to be more welcoming and show concern towards migrant workers’ well-being and mental health

The project involves 1100 migrant workers, 60 volunteers, and 5 partner organizations including ACE Group from MOM and Sama Sama. Some events we have done include:

3. Skills For Good - Volunteer (Sep 2021 - Dec 2021)

Skills For Good is a one-stop platform connecting skilled volunteers and social organizations for skills-based volunteering. During my time there, I helped enhance resume screening process by optimizing NLP model and data pipelines to save recruiters’ time, lessen the impact of any potential bias, and ensure that only the best candidates move forward to deliver social impact.

More photographs

Back to top

Wong Guan Min

There are different qualities that people value and deem important to their life. For me, it is empathy. This quality has led me to discovering my career goal of joining the Public Service and made me many like-minded friends.

Initially, I joined Community Service as an extracurricular to improve my portfolio. The mindset I had going in was to do a minimal amount of work to clock hours. This mindset made volunteering challenging for me. While I sympathised with the beneficiaries I worked with, I felt that there was little I could do to help. Thankfully, I met many experienced volunteers who encouraged me to speak to my beneficiaries as friends rather than view them as fragile people who needed help. That advice led me to understand how volunteering was more than providing help, it was about empowerment.

An area that I became highly invested in was working with seniors. Through my interactions with them, I realised that many seniors wished that people would stop viewing them as fragile and recognise them for their rich experiences and skills. Thus, I led a Community Service Project to promote senior volunteerism. I encouraged seniors to sign up as volunteers and liaised with different organisations to find volunteering opportunities. I collaborated with senior volunteers to plan volunteering events based on our beneficiary’s needs and the volunteers’ skills.

Through volunteering, preconceptions I had of marginalised groups were dispelled and replaced with respect and understanding.

Project Homia! [2019-2020] (Liaison Head)
Project Homia! is a 1-year pilot project in collaboration with Montfort Care. The project aimed to encourage active volunteerism among seniors in the Yishun community.

Project Kinderjoy [2019-2021] (Team Leader)
Project Kinderjoy is a 2-year pilot project in collaboration with Life Community Services Society. The project aimed to impart children with incarcerated parents with skills like financial management and effective communication.

Advisory [2021-present] (Mentorship Officer)
Advisory is a fully youth-led non-profit dedicated to empowering young Singaporean to make informed decisions about their futures. The Advisory Mentorship Programme is the largest mentorship programme in Singapore that pairs students with working professionals in their field of interest on a 1-1 basis.

Other activities:
Welfare Services Club, Ignite Change (2019-Present)
Conjunct Consulting, Associate Consultant with Children’s Wishing Well (2020)
Calvary Church, Organising Committee (2018-2019)
Fei Yue Community Services, Volunteer (2017-2019)
YMCA, Volunteer (2017-2019)

More photographs

Back to top