CAPT Community Engagement Festival 2014

NUS College of Alice & Peter Tan’s (CAPT) inaugural Community Engagement Festival, which was held on 14 March 2014, was organised with the understanding that everyone has something to teach each other, regardless of whether they are volunteers or beneficiaries.

“Sustainable community service is when we share,” said Dr Tan Lai Yong, CAPT Director for Outreach and Community Engagement, in reference to how CAPT students, who are on a meal plan, are encouraged to host a younger student they are mentoring to breakfast at the CAPT dining hall on Saturdays. But, if they did so, they would be giving up their breakfast for the day.

Before joining NUS as a Senior Lecturer at the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, Dr Tan trained village doctors in the Yunnan province of China for 14 years.

Groups made up of different segments of society huddled together under the gigantic whirring fans of the residential college’s dining hall, playing games that were designed to create opportunities for sharing and conversation. The intention was for the students involved to reflect on their personal motivations for and understanding of community engagement through a series of fun activities and games.

The games, which were facilitated by CAPT students, had migrant workers from nonprofit community development organisation HealthServe and senior citizens from St Hilda’s Community Services mingling with about 100 students, from secondary schools, the homeschool community, junior colleges and polytechnics.

The CAPT students came up with these games, which tapped into common experiences shared by all the groups. One game required group members to pinpoint, on a map, different locations around Singapore based on photos, some of which were in black and white. Another game had people guessing food items that were in a box through touch.

“Today’s games stations enable people to share their experiences and stories with one another. Because without stories, we would never know how our lives intersect,” said Mr Jonathan Koh, student organiser of the CAPT Community Engagement Festival.

While the students were interacting with members of the various community groups, their teachers participated in a forum titled, “Volunteering Among Youths—Listening to their Passion. Learning about Priorities.” The forum, where the teachers interacted with each other and members from the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre and Voluntary Welfare Organisations, was hosted by Dr Tan and Dr Diarra Boubacar, a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor and community development worker who is originally from Mali but practicing in China.

Mr Chin Khai Ying, an English teacher from Geylang Methodist Secondary School, said he hoped to learn, from the Festival, how he could adapt his school’s framework and curriculum so that students would initiate and take ownership of volunteering projects.

“I want to know how to engender more volunteerism. We don’t want the students to just complete activities and projects. We want them to be active, to cultivate the heart to serve and bless others,” he said.