Good morning to you all! I have a short speech, which can be summarised into four words – We Care, U Care.
We Care
We Care because NTUC has a mission which is to be a “Labour Movement That Cares”. My team recently posted this quote by Mother Theresa on our Facebook page – “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love”.
I thought it aptly describes us at U Care – in our small unassuming ways, we focus very much on what we do which is to help our low-income members and their families, our workers and the community, hoping that with the accumulation of all the small amount of help given, we could make a difference to each of their lives.
We Care for our workers, many of them are sole breadwinners, whose earnings form the primary source of support for their dependents. The financial load adds to their stress especially if they have large families and do not earn high salaries. We make an effort to continuously work towards reaching out to our lower income members and improving their lives through U Care assistance programmes e.g. U Stretch Vouchers which help lessen their burden on daily necessities.
We also try our best to help their children excel in their studies, supporting them with assistance programmes such as the U Care Back to School Vouchers and U Care Education Co-funding Scheme so that they will be placed on a level playing field and be successful one day, despite their familial challenges.
We Care too, for the community through our donations to the NTUC Eldercare Trust and NTUC Bright Horizons Fund which provides assistance to needy elderly and pre-school children respectively. There is also the U Care CSR - Caring. Sharing. Reaching Out Scheme which provides co-funding support for community service projects undertaken by unions and communities within the Labour Movement.
U Care
But before we can show that We Care for our members, our workers and our community, there must first be U Care. The good that U Care Fund has been doing would not have been possible if not for the strong and committed support from our donors. FairPrice Foundation is one of our most supportive donors and we want to especially thank FairPrice Foundation for showing U Care in what we do.
This year, the U Care Fund has set a fundraising target of $10.5 million so that we could continue to provide assistance to our low-income members and their families. With FairPrice Foundation’s pledge of $1.5 million through the Breadwinners’ campaign, we are getting closer to our target and we hope to achieve it at our main fundraiser later in Aug.
We therefore call upon everyone to show U Care and support our breadwinners by buying as many loaves of FairPrice brand bread as you can within your means, so that we can reach FairPrice Foundation’s $1.5million pledge to U Care Fund. I started my speech with a Mother Theresa’s quote “we can all do small things with great love”, and I’ll like to end it with a story.
Conclusion
A man was walking along the beach when he saw a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Curious, he asked the boy, “What are you doing?” The boy replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.” The bemused man asked, “Boy, don’t you realise there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make any difference!” After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the ocean. He turned to smile at the man and said, “I made a difference for that one.” Some of you may have heard this story before but do you know there’s a part two? Part two says that the man then joined the boy to do the same, and every time someone asked them, they conveyed the same message. Soon, the whole stretch of beach was filled with people, picking up starfish and throwing them back to the ocean. So you see, every little effort counts, and if we have a show of force by everyone, we will do great things. Together we can make a difference and touch many more lives. I take this chance to wish all a happy National Day and Hari Raya celebrations ahead. Thank you.
