Inspire

In different capacities, as a Scout Leader and teacher, I am constantly looking out for opportunities for our Scouts and students to contribute back to society. I am also the liaison officer with some of my partner special education schools for the past 2 years and this has opened my eyes to this community, conducting visits, talks and dialogues between the partner schools and the staff and students in Anglican High School.

Learn & Decide

Encourage:

As the Head of Citizenship Education and Values in Action, I have the privilege and opportunity to craft out community projects for students. For Scouts, we do not limit the community they take part in, but let them choose their target community. 

One of the projects we have put up for one of our Scouts, Enrique, is for the Inclusive Sailing, co-organized by the Singapore Ministry of Education and Outward Bound Singapore. In this pilot programme, we had to undergo training understand the profile of the students with mild intellectual disability (MID) and Enrique got to interact with students with MID and eventually work together to learn sailing. Enrique from my troop was one of the ten selected for this opportunity after I did my sharing (presentation and video) to the school) and worked closely with the students from Katong School to work on a sail boat. Isaac also had the opportunity to go to Chiang Rai for an overseas community project - Looking at building simple amenities that we have taken for granted, and simple phonetics lessons for the children there.

Explore:

For Enrique, he was briefed by the Special Education branch on the profile of his counterparts and how to engage them fruitfully. He then, with a team of 9 from our school and 4 from Katong School, went through basic sailing and knotting skills before the actual camp. Isaac was briefed about the profile of the villagers and also had to prepare his lessons and cultural presentations, which is similar to the trip that I prepared him for to Australia earlier in the year.

Engage:

Enrique got to work very closely at the OBS campsite in Pulau Ubin to work with his counterparts from Katong School. He learnt that, along with his peers, MID could be a disadvantage to his counterparts from KS, but definitely not a disability. Isaac had an in depth opportunity to work with the villagers there and paved roads for them and conducted simple lessons. He learnt that there are many things that we have taken as a necessity for granted.

Share

Enrique and Isaac shared with the PLC and juniors their thoughts about the programme and will be continuing to work on a poster for the school’s Values day in 2020. One question I asked is this "Did this project change your perspective about this community?" The answer is unanimous, everyone, with the right support and opportunity can shine and those with more, can help those who need more support than others.