It has been almost 4 months since Lions Befrienders began this year, and I truly believe that we have accomplished a lot over the four months. Every member of the group learned something during these four months.

In the beginning, we did not know much about the situation. Due to COVID-19, we cannot directly visit the Lions Befrienders Center. Thus, we are forced to move online. For the first few weeks, when things were still getting settled, we asked Coach Sul from the activities department to come to our session and introduce some movements/exercises and we could potentially do with the elderlies. Afterwards, we discussed and decided on a routine in which we will conduct the exercises.

For the following weeks, we recorded videos of the exercises in a group during our sessions and sent the videos off to the centre for them to watch, as the service department was negotiating with the partner regarding live sessions. We also did a Christmas special video when we dressed up with Christmas decorations and did the exercises, “it was very entertaining”, the elderlies feedbacked. Recently, we were permitted to conduct live ZOOM sessions with our service partner, we did so, and all the group members enjoyed interacting with the elderlies, I believe the elderlies enjoyed it too. In my September reflection, I have set myself some goals, below, I will reflect on those goals and perhaps plan how I can move forward:

#LO1 Awareness: Since this is my third year in the Lions Befrienders Service group, I have a good understanding of what our service group needs to do moving forward. Additionally, we have a lot of new members joining us this year, being an experienced member, I can quickly settle the new members into our service group’s mission and vision, which made their transitions easier.

#LO3 Initiative: As Lions Befrienders is one of the few local service groups that tackle the global problem of an ageing population, we are trying to take initiatives to be the role model for other similar service/focus groups and global concern groups. During the past few months, as we are not able to visit their service centre directly, we took the initiative of video calling them instead of just recording videos for elderlies to watch, as we feel live sessions will be more exciting and engaging for both the elderlies and us. Also, we have a very reflective group, every time when some parts of the session go off-track, members will often come up with a solution right away, which I am really happy about, without the wonderful members, our service would not come so far.

#LO4 Commitment: All the group members are committing to this service, everyone has been incredibly passionate, and excited everyone when we see the elderlies, despite virtually. We will keep the passion and power through the rest of the school year.

#LO6 Global Value: Our service group tackles the global problem of an ageing population, we help them to actively age and live a health livestyle. Additionally, we are still working to better enhance their experience and interaction with us. We are also working towards teaching them the importance of an active lifestyle on health and mind.

#LO7 Ethics: When creating our exercise routine, our group was faced with some ethical decisions: we have to take elderlies that are unable to move well into account. Therefore, for every exercise that we are designing, we have another variation that can be performed by elderlies that are not able to stand up (on wheelchairs). Which effectively tackled the problem, when we conducted the live ZOOM session, we found out that there are physical inconvenient elderlies who found the alternation of the exercise very helpful, their reactions gratified everyone.

I look forward to our future sessions with our service partner!