The Youth Club @ Boon Lay

The Youth Club @ BoonLay

The eventful year of 2009 saw numerous group-initiated projects take place, aimed at effecting meaningful change in the Boon Lay community and doing just that.

Igniting the passionate flame for community service in youth clubbers at the start of the year was “YES WE CAN” Children’s Camp, organized from the 10th-12th June for underprivileged primary school children (9-11 years old) living in the Boon Lay community. The over-arching theme of the camp being: YES WE CAN! Discovering, Caring, Leading. These 30 children who come from underprivileged backgrounds or are socially inept (e.g. latchkey children, children with dysfunctional families), are often neglected at home and may not receive sufficient attention in school.

The camp thus aimed to develop the participants’ esteem via providing them with a platform to explore their abilities, equipping them with essential life skills, and fostering a sense of personal leadership and community awareness.

The next milestone in club history was the inaugural Project Bring a Hope, which reached out to households facing financial difficulties and was even featured on Channel 8. The first part of this project took place on 21st June, when Mediacorp artiste Terence Cao and his team of celebrity artistes personally prepared 1000 packets of rice to be distributed to the needy families, along with some daily commodities. More importantly, visiting these households in need allowed the club to learn what their wishes were for the new year, which were then fulfilled on 20th Dec, this time with the help of radio and TV personality Dong Fang Billy.

Other projects carried out were
• Job Fair @ Boon Lay
• Run Boon Lay Run, which in collaboration with the YOG committee, taught residents more about the upcoming inaugural Youth Olympics in 2010
• Saturday@Boon Lay, a community platform to showcase local arts talents, from performing arts to visual arts, handicrafts and fashion. It was designed not only to let residents enjoy a free open-air variety performance, but also served to raise an awareness and cultivate appreciation for the arts.

The year ended in a grand finale of Countdown@ Boon Lay 2009– Boon Lay Rocks!. The countdown is billed as the largest grassroots countdown party in Singapore, which has become the signature event of the club since its inauguration 7 years ago, attended by some 30 000 residents.

The 2009 Countdown@Boon Lay saw the involvement of popular local artistes like Hady Mirza, Joanne Peh and Mark Lee, as well as phenomenal fireworks and other exciting programme line-ups. The Youth Club spearheads and is heavily involved in the planning and execution of this major event yearly, and it has shown to be a valuable learning experience for every youth clubber involved. (Refer to Countdown Website at http://boonlay.org.sg/countdown/ for photos and more exciting details!)

TYC even emerged as the “Most Active Grassroots Organisation” Award among all the grassroots organisations in Boon Lay in 2009. In recognition of TYC’s active contribution to Boon Lay and our passion for service, Boon Lay CCC has also decided to launch scholarships and bursaries specially for members of the club who have made outstanding contributions starting from 2010.

The year 2010 kicked off with the implementation of the rest of the projects proposed in 2009, serving as a way for new members to integrate themselves as part of the club. Such projects are the annual CLIMB conference and FACELIFT 2010.

CLIMB (Community Leadership – Initiating, Modelling, Becoming) conference is an annual event to promote interaction between TYC and schools in Boon Lay. Students from schools in Boon Lay work together to identify problems within their community and propose solutions through well thought out project proposals that are later presented to the grassroot leaders for approval. This would cultivate a sustained interest in community issues and a sense of concern and awareness for their fellow countrymen.

FACELIFT 2010, carried out in March to April 2010, was a refurbishment project aimed at improving the living conditions of underprivileged households and educating them on the importance of maintaining a clean domestic environment.

The first phase of FACELIFT 2010 kicked off in March, when volunteers conducted door-to-door visits to over 700 households in the 3-4 targeted HDB blocks; so as to better understand the actual needs of the residents. Over the course of two house visits, Youth Club volunteers managed to collate the names of 50 odd families who requested to have their apartments cleaned or re-painted. The second phase then saw the flats of the lower-income Boon Lay residents undergoing a literal “facelift”, with meticulous repainting and cleaning carried out over the course of the entire day on 3rd April by over 100 volunteers.

Thereafter, the torch of leadership was passed on into the hands of the batch of 2010, allowing them to begin their journey in pioneering innovative and promising projects which have the potential to leave a lasting impact on the Boon Lay community.

The first successful Youth Club project of 2010 was carried out on 29 May, a collaboration between Boon Lay Zone B RC and TYC, a celebration of the Dragon-Boat Festival. A poetry recitation competition was held, in the form of a “Don’t forget the lyrics” (television program) manner, to generate interest in this ancient Chinese art. This refreshing take on the age-old art of Chinese poetry managed to engage the interest of residents young and old alike, and saw overwhelming response from the enthusiastic Boon Lay residents who eagerly ran up on stage to complete lines from popular Tang poems. The group also compiled the Boon Lay Dragon Boat Collage, which saw 200 residents penning down what Boon Lay meant to them as well as their vision for Boon Lay, on scales which will later form the body of a dragon boat banner. The team hoped that this physical representation of the banner would unite the Boon Lay community in the very spirit of the festival, fostering cooperation, patriotism and an appreciation for one’s cultural roots.

A.C.T (All-Star Children’s Theatre), was a 3-day camp held for Boon Lay Garden Primary School children from ages 7-9 where drama lessons, games and interactive teamwork elements were introduced to boost self-esteem in less expressive students. It aimed to instill in them the confidence to interact with their peers, good teamwork skills as well as public speaking skills that would be useful in their later life.

Another initiative, Project Code Green aims to encourage recycling in residents through a one- day event that allows residents of Boon Lay to exchange their recyclables for groceries.

We are also planning to carry out projects birthed from CLIMB conference 2010, such as Stories@Boon Lay, collecting life stories of Boon Lay residents who have been through inspiring experiences and compiling these stories into a book to be published and sold. Boon Lay Mural is another project, a collaborative effort by the Boon Lay residents, creating a wall mural on a side of the new Boon Lay Community Centre as a physical manifestation of the Boon Lay community spirit. 2010 is set to be an exciting year of promising developments and the new batch is raring to go, eager to serve the Boon Lay community.