Community Heroes: How my quest to borrow a pencil sparked this youth-led initiative

I have volunteered since I was in Secondary 1, as I was drawn to the potential of volunteering to change lives. I would find various ways to help the community, for example by delivering food to elderly residents.

My journey with Project WIN, or “What I Need”, started in 2020 — right before my N-Levels — with a forgotten pencil case.

I needed to borrow a pen or pencil to survive the day in school. It was then that I noticed some of my friends had only either one pencil or pen, and they could not lend me any.

I later found out that was all they could afford, and it got me thinking: What can I do to contribute? What can the community do to chip in?

That was the moment Project WIN was born.

Our mission is simple yet aspirational: We strive to meet the needs of individuals in our community, and also foster a sense of belonging and connection among them.

We do this by collaborating with various charities and organisations to find opportunities for our pool of youth volunteers to serve the community.

We offer three broad services — volunteer requests, befriending and event organising.

Our volunteer request service allows our partners to reach out to us to help at their events. One of them is Nee Soon Central Zone 3 Residents’ Network. They regularly request volunteers from us to support their initiatives, such as senior nights and festival celebrations.

We also work with specific organisations to provide befrienders from our team. These befrienders are tasked to go through a crisis with a resident, which could be a medical crisis or loss of a family member. When a referrer comes to us, we try to recommend a befriender that best suits them.

Last, we coordinate with partners such as senior activity centres and residents’ networks to organise a range of community activities.

A particularly memorable one was a campfire and carnival for a special needs school in 2022.

We were just emerging from Covid-19 and a friend told me about the school wanting to hold an event to celebrate coming back together. Even though it rained that night, we still managed to pull off the event. The smiles and joy that night is a memory that I will never forget.  

The trust and resources allocated to us grew with each successful engagement, and soon, we explored creating bigger events, such as the Nee Soon Central Youth Prom Night in 2023.

To help youths connect with each other after almost three years in isolation, we brought together 100 participants from the Nee Soon Central Community Club (CC) to experience “prom night”.

I saw many new friendships formed that night among the young who may not have met each other before in a normal setting, which I hope will continue to foster good neighbourly relationships.

Our journey is not without challenges. Many times, we've been told to give up because “many people are already doing this kind of work”.

We also often run into difficulties in funding our activities. There were questions about the credibility of a ground-up, making it tough to obtain the resources we needed.

To overcome these obstacles, I ensure that my team has the specific competencies in completing an event. When we lack expertise, we seek help from experienced community leaders or organisations.

When it comes to funding, we have been fortunate to partner with organisations such as Nee Soon Central CC. We earned the trust of its management committee and were appointed as one of its community volunteer groups in 2022.

We ensure that our proposals present valid community needs and creative solutions to meet these needs. Funds are usually approved if these requirements are met.

We are also proud to have worked with other organisations including the People's Association, Ngee Ann Polytechnic and Ramakrishna Mission.

As a ground-up consisting of a core team of 10 youths, an additional goal for us is to increase the youth volunteerism rate by initiating ad-hoc programmes in collaboration with community centres.

Over the span of four years, we have engaged more than 200 volunteers and created more than 40 volunteer activities, including those mentioned above and others such as supporting the elderly during various festivities.   

Despite the challenges, the joy and fulfilment we've experienced through our initiatives has been immeasurable and we refuse to let these constraints hold us back. There's something special about bringing people together and creating meaningful connections.

To anyone out there interested in starting their own ground-up, my advice is simple: Listen to advice from others, but don't let negative comments discourage you. 

Not everyone will understand your vision, but that's okay. Stay true to yourself and your mission.

The landscape of community work is ever evolving, so be willing to pivot and adapt as needed. 

Build connections with everyone you meet. You never know who might be able to offer support or guidance along the way.

ABOUT THE WRITER:

Mason Ong, 20, is a Year 2 Community Development student in Ngee Ann Polytechnic and was a recipient of the Ngee Ann Outstanding Community All Rounder (Oscar) award in 2023. He previously completed a Nitec in Community and Social Services at ITE College East.

Project WIN is supported by Bagus Together, an initiative which helps changemakers and ground-ups start and sustain their work.

If you have an experience to share or know someone who wishes to contribute to this series, write to voices [at] mediacorp.com.sg with your full name, address and phone number.