21S13

Our class worked with 2 Lion Befrienders centres (Tampines and Clementi), and we had to plan a 1h session for the elderly.

The theme for this year’s session was national day. So we came up with interesting activities such as pictionary, origami folding/drawing and trivia while adjusting it to suit the national day theme.

The 1h session was carried out through zoom due to covid-19 restrictions, so we had to interact with the elderly through a screen. There were some ups and downs throughout the whole project, but it was still an interesting and memorable experience.

1. I found this experience to be extremely enriching and insightful. I do not live with my grandparents, so it was one of the rare opportunities I had to interact with the elderly. Originally, my subgroup was supposed to organize a Sing-Along to National Day songs, but it was subsequently changed to a National Day Trivia due to Covid-19 restrictions. Despite this setback, I still found the experience of creating Singapore-based questions to be very delightful. I found joy in researching about Singapore’s history and the significance of certain national symbols like the national flag, which made this task particularly apt for me. I was even surprised to be learning whilst creating the questions. There were so many things that questioned my knowledge of the nation, which was especially astonishing, considering my two years of doing Singapore history in secondary school. Nonetheless, I was proud of the end-product and could not wait for the elderly to participate in this activity.

The entire program was carried out virtually due to the restrictions which was disappointing. I would have much preferred to interact with the elderly physically as I believe that would be a more intimate experience to communicate with them. By having it virtually, they could only focus on one screen at a time and the other students were unable to interact with them. However, the activities were seamlessly executed, and it went all as planned. The elderly were also able to follow the instructions for each activity and were able to follow along. Thankfully, there were emcees who spoke in their respective mother tongue languages to ensure the non-English speaking elderly were not left out in the activities.

To conclude the session, there was a short dancing session. The elderly and the students could all participate in this activity by following the steps of the ‘Dance of the Nation’ video on YouTube which used a remixed version of the current National Day song ‘The Road Ahead’. I believe this was the activity where all were the most enthusiastic. During this, there were smiles on almost all faces as they followed the steps and got a ‘mini workout’. In the end, the elderly were all in a jovial mood and seemed to enjoy our session with them. Despite the minor mishaps due to it being carried out virtually, the overall experience was memorable and blissful. It delighted me when the elderly were able to answer the questions correctly and laughed away during the dance. Such moments are so rare in our fast-paced society, which causes us to overlook groups such as the elderly. I believe these moments with the elderly must be treasured. It must also be more commonly seen in society, and should not occur only because of projects organized by schools.

2. Over the past few years and majority of our primary and secondary school life, we usually served the elderly so this time we wanted to do serve a different community. Initially our class wanted to centre our service-learning project around children or animals, however due to COVID restrictions, it posed some restrictions. When we first got the news that we would be having our SL day with the elderly, I am not going to lie, but I definitely felt a small sense of unwillingness, and the whole class also felt that way but we eventually bounced up and started embracing the change instead. Adapting to the changes we had, we split into groups and started planning our activities. Taking into the theme, our seniors and the fact that we would be holding the session over zoom into account, we planned light hearted but also fun activities that our seniors could do without giving them too much of a strenuous activity.

Over the course of planning our activities, we realised that there was a need for backup activities just in case we ran into difficulties. Not being at the centre in person, it was definitely a lot harder to see if the elderly were engaged enough and whether they were having fun. In the days leading up to the SL, my class and I had a lot of dry runs in order to prepare for the actual day itself. Those dry runs were incredibly insightful as it offered us some perspective on how the day might go. It was during that time where we decided to firm up on our backup plans for origami, as we realised that the origami video that we played was way too fast and hard to follow, which meant that if we were to do it with the elderly on the actual day, we might lose them along the way. Furthermore, we realised that we had to change the way we ended our session so that it would not be so abrupt, and our seniors will leave happily almost as though we were there with them. This prompted us to end off with this year’s national day song and a short little dance that has been popularised on social media.

We also learnt a lot from our morning session on the actual day itself, realising that we also needed to be lot more engaging and have triple the enthusiasm so that our seniors will feel like we are there with them. When it came to the last and final session of the day, the session went so much more smoothly and all the elderly’s left the session happy and well.Overall, looking at how excited the elderlies got when they guessed our drawings on Pictionary and their smiles when they drew the singapore skyline just put a smile on my face. I know that our class didn’t manage to serve the community we most wanted to, but I am glad that we got the chance to work together and cheer our seniors up with the short 1-hour session. Seeing their faces light up when they got an answer correct made me very happy and I’m glad that they thoroughly enjoyed their time with us. The thing I learnt the most from this SL day, is the need to always have a Plan B. I think everyone knows this by heart but after witnessing what could go horribly wrong and the number of hiccups we faced, it reinforced the fact that backup plans are super important no matter the situation. In hindsight, as my class and I planned to have a second activity, we manage to avert the crisis and continue our session smoothly. I am grateful for this opportunity to serve the elderlies and make memories to treasure with my classmates.

3. Though it was not my first time participating in a service learning project which is for the elderly, it was the first time when I had to personally plan the details and contact the Lion Befrienders centre myself. In the past when I had to carry out VIA (values in action) projects, the details were all laid out and nicely planned, I just had to follow the instructions given and participate during the VIA session. However this time it was a completely different experience, we had to come up with the details ourselves and even contact the centres ourselves via email.

It was my first time being in-charge of planning programmes like this so it was difficult at the start as I had no prior experience, however I soon got used to it and it got easier over time with the support of my classmates. We initially planned for 3 activities, pictionary, origami folding and sing-a-long. However after checking with the centre, we found out that due to covid-19 restrictions the elderly would not be able to participate during the sing-a-long session. So, we decided to change the sing-a-long activity to a national day trivia instead in order for the eldely to be able to participate actively. Soon after, we realised that the origami folding might be too difficult for the eldely to follow, as we also had difficulty when learning how to fold the origami. We then realised that we should come up with a backup plan to follow if the eldely are unable to follow, we came up with a simple but engaging activity such as drawing of singapore’s tourist attractions. Nearer to the actual date of the session, we started to carry out multiple dry runs to practice and to ensure our activities would be carried out smoothly during the session with the elderly. Despite the multiple dry runs we carried out, during the first session with Lion Befrienders we were unprepared and our activities did not run as smoothly as we expected it to. We met with unexpected technical difficulties and it was harder to communicate with the elderly than expected, however due to the perseverance of my classmates, we still managed to pull through. Even though there were difficulties encountered during the session, it was still heartwarming to see that the eldely enjoyed the session with us, especially when they were proudly showing us their drawings they drew with us.

During the second session, we were much more prepared and it went a lot better than the first session. We learnt from our mistakes made during the first session and made changes to our plan, allowing everything to run smoothly. In conclusion, I hope everybody enjoyed this SL journey as much as I did, even despite the ups and downs this experience would still be a memorable and fun one for me. Even though we only spent a short 1 hour with the elderly, I hope they had an enjoyable time with our company.