By Gwen Sin
1,591 students ranging from primary to tertiary (Institute of Technical Education, Polytechnic and University) levels were awarded $206,500 worth of scholarship awards and education grants at the 16th annual NTUC General Branch-U Care Fund Education Awards. About 300 students and their families were present at the NTUC Centre’s auditorium on 20 August 2011 to receive the scholarship awards with NTUC Assistant Secretary-General Seng Han Thong gracing the event.
This meaningful event kicked off with an enlightening talk by ‘MADMum’ Anne Yeo from MAD Learning Pte Ltd. In her talk, she shared interesting facts about the human brain, the nature and nurture of it, and which led to more findings about every individual’s giftedness and how thinking styles could be represented as a left-right bias for the left and right hemispheres of the brain through the presentation in four main colours, such as red, yellow, blue and green.
In his address, ASG Seng noted that this year’s awards also saw a 20 per cent increase in the number of beneficiaries from 2010. He lauded yearly fund-raising efforts which are often met for three purposes: scholarship and bursaries; Back-to-School vouchers for needy students and, lastly, U-Stretch vouchers for low income households.
He shared: “After hearing from Ms Anne Yeo about the functions of our brains, we know that we have all powers when we come together as one community. In a community, people come together to strategise, conceptualise and develop a system so as to care for others.
“So really, the lesson is to think of how many areas of giftedness we have. There are 14 areas of giftedness discovered today. That reminded me of a Chinese adage, “天生我才必有用 (ti n sh ng w cái bì yǒuyòng)”, which my teachers always said to my classmates and me about being endowed with natural talents for the future. Hopefully, this scholarship awards will not only incentivise you to pursue your talents further, but will also make you believe that you are gifted in many aspects, so that you will be of service to the bigger self - to the community, to society, to the nation.”
All student recipients this year also received a one-year complimentary membership with nEbO.
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"We wish to build a community for life for our union members where they can enjoy every aspect of work, live and play. Today’s celebration is a key part of forging and strengthening this relationship. I am very happy for the children of our union members recognised through NTUC General Branch-U Care Fund Education Awards. This also helps us to start building an early relationship with the workers of tomorrow! This year we are also equipping these students with a free one-year nEbO membership. This is significant, because the nEbO membership is designed to make them work-ready, world-ready, life-ready. So we do not just endeavour that they are successful this year, but also that they are successful for the rest of their lives, which goes back to our vision of building a U community for life.”
NTUC Membership Department Director Vivek Kumar
"I am very happy and excited to receive this award. It helps and pushes me to study harder, so that I can get the scholarship again next year. It also encourages me to reach closer to my aspiration in becoming a psychologist eventually.”
Secondary One Chung Cheng High School (Main) student Kong Ling, Jolene was awarded $100 for scoring three As and one A star based on her PSLE results in 2010.
