PAST ENTRIES
Session: Making Mothers' Day flowers and Physical Training (21 April 2019)
Volunteers Natalie and Kennisse, as well as their friends from NUS Sheares Hall, organised a Mothers' Day gift-making session for us today. They led us in making crepe-paper flowers, which we will be giving to all our mothers on 5 May, during session, when we celebrate Mothers' Day.
After the arts and crafts, we did our AMK Physical Training at the basketball court behind our centre. Once again, our trainees warmed up with a 10 minute Zumba workout. For this week, we modified the circuit training such that trainees were grouped according to their functioning level. Our higher functioning trainees proceeded with more intensive exercises like sit-ups, flutter kicks, sit-and-reach, while our medium functioning trainees played more simple games. The less high-functioning trainees engaged in passing of balls as well as holding simple weights for biceps and triceps training.
After session today, volunteers played two rounds of Captains' Ball and went out for dinner and drinks after that!
Trainees doing sit-ups!
Zumba workout!
Throwing a ball with teamwork!
Great turnup of volunteers today!
After a very exhausting and hilarious captains' ball game
Session: Paper Plate Turtles and Physical Training (14 April 2019)
Our volunteers Clara and Jordan organised the Arts and Crafts Session today, where they led in an ingenious idea of creating turtles out of paper plates and construction paper. The end result? Exotic turtles of all sorts of colors, shapes, sizes- some with their limbs, heads and tails positioned in very, unique, locations. It was indeed a fun hour of turtle making between volunteers and trainees!
Today, we also had our first try at our AMK physical training. Wei Ling led the trainees in a 10 minute warm up and Zumba workout, and subsequently, the trainees were rotated through three stations led respectively by Shi Hou, Rachel and Clinton. At Shi Hou's station, trainees worked on their lower limb muscles. Shi Hou creatively made use of chairs to achieve these goals- his exercises were for trainees to tiptoe while holding on to the chairs, followed by sit-squat without hand support (which even we cannot do), and squat-stand (even worse). Rachel's exercises were for the upper limbs, in which trainees did Buddha claps, arm rotations. Clinton focused on building core muscles, where trainees lay on exercise mats and did sit-ups, flutter kicks and sit-and-reach. Finally, Wei Ling led them in a cool-down exercise before heading back for a well-deserved teabreak.
After the session, we had a debrief to discuss about the circuit training. We felt that it was great seeing the trainees push their limits in exercises they do not usually do, like situps and sit-and-reach. We also saw that them having different functioning levels really affected the kind of activities we could include in our circuit training- for some they could do so much more, while for some they had more difficulties doing the same activities. Hence, we decided that for next week, we would try grouping them by functioning levels to achieve our goal of "an exercise for every muscle for every trainee"
Here are some photos:
Session: Felt houses and Sports/Games (7 April 2019)
At centre today, our volunteers Ita and Wei Ting organised the Arts and Crafts Session where our trainees made cute pretty houses out of felt today.
Today is also a joyous occassion because two of our more senior volunteers, Wei Ming and Wei Ting, who have not appeared for centuries due to personal commitments and hectic work/ study life, have returned! These wonderful photos are taken with Wei Ming's self-proclaimed (but indeed pretty good) amazing Googlepixel3. Wei Ting is our very own cheerful AMK-bred dentist who has finished her studies and will have more time to come for sessions (hopefully)!
Wing Lun also brought the trainees out for sports and games!
Here are some photos from today:
Outing: Art Science Museum; Future World Exhibition ( 31 March 2019)
On 31 March 2019, our trainees and caregivers visited the Art Science Museum for the Future World Exhibition. It was the first time visiting the Art Science Museum for most of them, and our project managed to get amazingly great ticket deals!
Our trainees enjoyed the exhibition very much- given the large amount of interactive activities available. They especially liked the exhibit where they could draw and color objects, that would subsequently appear and move (become alive!) on a screen.
Many of the exhibits there made use of colorful and impressive light displays that enchanted our trainees.
The other exhibit our trainees particularly liked were the colorful balls, which they could hold, bounce, roll over, crawl under- you name it, they have it. The colors of the balls would also keep changing.
The highlight for both trainees and caregivers was definitely the curtain of crystals. Some of our trainees were so afraid of falling down the narrow corridor (actually just a trick and play with mirrors) that they hugged on tightly to their caregivers or volunteers.
After the exhibition, we also walked the DNA helix bridge and took some great photos before heading back to Ang Mo Kio via the chartered bus.
AMK New Initiative: AMK Bikini Body Circuit Training and Workout, and the Year Ahead
16 March 2019, Ang Mo Kio Committee Meeting
Our new committee for the year has been formed!
Our goals for this year are:
Meeting REAL needs of trainees, and not needs we perceive they may have
Achieving volunteer growth and stability
In order to find out what these real needs are, over the past month and during the CNY visits, our committee members have been gathering feedback from our caregivers on how the sessions can be improved. We found that they wanted:
More sessions
More outings
More physical activity and weight loss for the trainees
In response, we:
Extended session timings
Have more outings- monthly excluding other ad-hoc outings such as inter-project collaborations, workshops
Weekly one-hourly Workout and Circuit Training
10 min Zumba workout
Circuit Training with three stations, focusing on upper limb, lower limb, core muscles respectively
10 min Zumba workout
with running of one round in between each circuit station
Dietary and food changes: only one unhealthy teabreak during birthday celebrations, water mostly with some light snacks on other sessions
Apart from these general needs, we also wanted to find out the individual needs of all our individual trainees, and allow our volunteers access to this information so that they may be able to help our trainees individually during sessions.
We surveyed each caregiver to find out the following about each trainee:
Strengths
What they need to improve on
What to avoid when interacting with them
Independence and level of help required in eating, feeding, bathing, clothing, washing hands, toileting
Dietary preferences and requirements
To provide volunteers with a greater sense of ownership to our project, we have also modified the way we plan sessions- join us to find out :P
Looking forward to a great year ahead where we can fully maximise the time we have with our trainees, and help them achieve the goals that they are capable of, and hopefully beyond. Most importantly, we will have fun and friendships at the end of the day! (:
MYG Event: MYG Sports Day (March 2019)
There are a few annual MINDS Youth Group (MYG) events that all projects of MINDS Youth Group will be invited to, and these include the Annual Camp for the Intellectually Disabled (ACID), MYG Sports Day, MYG Family Day, Special Olympics. These events are a great platform for our project to get to know trainees and volunteers from other projects, share ideas, and connect over a common passion.
MYG Sports Day is always a day for us to put on our competitive gears and see which project emerges the strongest!!! But ultimately, it is also a day where we realise everyone is a winner (:
This year on 9 March...
AMK Event: CNY House Visiting (February 2019)
On 17 February 2019, our volunteers were divided into 4 groups to visit our trainee's houses for Chinese New Year. This is our yearly Ang Mo Kio activity, because it allows us to share the festive season with our trainees in their own homes, and is also a great opportunity for us to have a chat with their families to find out the latest updates in their lives, how they are coping, and also how they feel our sessions can be further improved. (:
Our trainees' homes are spread across the North to Northeast region of Singapore, and here are some photos of the visits! The caregivers never fail, every year, to welcome us with yummy food and goodies, so if you do join us for our next CNY house visit, do prepare an empty stomach!
And the above are just some of the houses we visited for each area (:
It was indeed a fruitful and fun-filled day as we bonded with volunteers while travelling whether on foot, public transport, Grab or car; with caregivers over yummy food; and with our trainees in their very own home.
Through our conversations with them, we also received constructive feedback on how our sessions may be improved for the trainees. The caregivers were all extremely pleased with last year's activities, and would like even more outings and more weekly sessions! Many of them also raised their concerns of our trainees becoming heavier, and eating too much with too little physical activity.
Our database and feedback committee will be taking these feedback seriously, and it will help us in planning for the new year ahead. (:
Even with all these technical details in the planning for our year ahead, I guess what is most essential is that we keep the spirit of the Ang Mo Kio family (comprising trainees, caregivers, volunteers) strong and bright. We are all here for one another because of the special connections forged, and may we keep the light of this circle of life strong in the many years to come.
Happy Chinese New Year everyone!
