“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Practical outreach puts into action what we preach and puts a face to our message.
“This makes the Labour Movement a lot more real to people. The U Heart initiatives help those in society who may be in greater need of support and allows the Labour Movement to come alive in their lives,” said NTUC Deputy Secretary-General (DSG) Heng Chee How when asked about the impact of volunteerism in the Labour Movement.
DSG Heng was speaking on the sidelines of ‘Tales from the Heart’, the concluding event for Young NTUC’s U Heart volunteer campaign on 12 August 2017 at Our Tampines Hub. Young NTUC’s U Heart campaign was organised in collaboration with NTUC Income.
Quality Engagement
Into its second year, U Heart 2017 saw a total of 52 activities with 2,300 volunteers from 17 unions, Labour Movement communities such as U Live (NTUC’s community for active agers),nEbO (NTUC’s youth community), Migrant Workers’ Centre (MWC) and groups from institutes of higher learning. The activities, which included appreciating workers, home clean-ups and outings with seniors, impacted a total of 6,500 beneficiaries. This took place over a five-month period from March to August.
“There has been better quality engagement this year. We see our unionists continuing to partner volunteer welfare organisations or seniors which they worked with last year. We also see other people coming in to explore different ways of doing things,” said Young NTUC Executive Secretary Desmond Choo.
He added that increasingly, the lines between work and volunteerism will blur because young people these days are purpose-driven towards their careers as well as who they are as Singaporeans. Through volunteerism, they will be able to pick up organisational skills, empathy and the ability to connect and work with other people. He believes volunteerism is the bedrock of how Singapore will evolve in the next lap.
Elsewhere in the LM
NTUC’s social enterprises such as NTUC Health and NTUC FairPrice have also been actively giving back to the community.
NTUC Health Chairman Tan Hwee Bin reported during the Annual Volunteer Appreciation Lunch on 12 August 2017 that the number of volunteers across NTUC Health’s services and programmes had increased from 240 in 2015 to 600 by the end of 2016.
NTUC Health also launched a volunteer handbook with resources for volunteers and its collaboration with the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) offers training opportunities to volunteers.
“With a rapidly ageing population, we need more volunteers to support us in caring for seniors holistically to enable them to age in place at home and in their communities… As our numbers of volunteers continue to grow, we want to ensure that while they devote their time and energy to bring joy to our senior, the volunteerism experience is also meaningful for them,” said Mdm Tan.
NTUC FairPrice has also been contributing back to the community through the FairPrice Volunteers’ programme that was launched in 2012.
Earlier this year, the social enterprise pledged to contribute 5,000 staff volunteer hours, and 500 hours from the public, in the area of senior-related activities with beneficiaries that include Bishan Home for the Intellectually Disabled, Ren Ci Nursing Home, Food from the Heart and Singapore Christian Home.
From 2016 to present, the programme has given back more than 6,700 hours to the community by holding about 10 activities a month.
Good To Know
Keen on helping out and giving back to the community? Here are some links to places you can go to.
- Centre for Domestic Workers (CDE)
- Migrant Workers’ Centre (MWC)
- nEbO
- Young NTUC
- NTUC Health
- NTUC FairPrice
