By Muneerah Bee Mohamed Iqbal
Additional reporting by Andrea Ng, NTUC Club
Turning four calls for a big birthday party and nEbO did just that on 16 July 2011 at Downtown East with its ‘4Ever nEbO, 4Ever Young anniversary’ celebrations. Besides music performances by youths, there was also a ‘Spectrumcular Bazaar’ offering an eclectic range of apparel, accessories and handicrafts as well as a flash mob dance by Ngee Ann Polytechnic students.
There were also plenty of games and lucky draw chances for nEbOians. As NTUC’s junior membership arm, nEbO has grown as a vibrant community for and by the youths and its growth would not have been possible without the participation of nEbO’s key activists.
Elaine Lim, 20, explained: “As key activists, we are in charge of coming up with a workplan every year for the different communities that we are involved in.” The Singapore Institute of Management student is very active in nEbO’s Care community and every two to three months, the community plans an event or activity for not-for-profit organisations. One of her highlights of being a nEbO activist was organising nEbO’s W.I.S.H. event in 2009, in collaboration with Shan You Counselling Centre, where nEbOians collected food rations for needy families. It was the first event where there were more than 100 volunteers.
Fellow activist 20-year-old Chua Cai Bei from Singapore Management University started off as a Youth Entrepreneurship Symposium (YES) participant in 2008 and subsequently she became a nEbO member and joined the organising committee for YES 2009 where she was also the event photographer. She recalled: “nEbO helped to nurture my interest in photography by subsidising the cost for a photography course. After I attended the course, I participated actively in the Photography interest group, helping to organise events such as the Snap That Moment photography competition.”
Ms Lim and Ms Chua will be in South Korea from 2-7 August with two other nEbOians to participate in the World Youth Rally 2011 hosted by Hostelling International Korea. Their birthday wish for nEbO is for it to grow its membership base and increase its partnership opportunities, and for more youths to be more active in its six communities. “This way, they can also find out more about the Labour Movement and NTUC,” Ms Chua said.
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