Over the last 2 months, I have been participating in the GC as a transitionary chair there to assist the future leadership of the GC. At the beginning of the year, I helped new members of the GC familiarise themselves with the mission and vision of our GC and CLS. In the following sessions, I took feedback from them on how to improve as a group both within and outside our GC time. Then on, I began the leadership application process whereby I selected the new leadership team of the GC for this year with the help of both the teacher facilitators. This involved asking them to submit a short written application in the first stage. We then selected the candidates we wanted to interview.

During the interview we asked them to talk about everything, ranging from their past experiences to their strengths and weaknesses. After that, I met up with the teacher facilitators and we decided on the candidates we wished to go ahead with. On the other hand, the GC sessions went on as usual and we came up with a set of questions we wanted to ask our NGO partner during our first call. We also came up with a set of personal goals for this year. All in all, it has been a very productive half term.

A list of goals that we came up with during one of our sessions:

• In the discussion below, I have spoken about the following questions:
• How have my actions had a positive/negative impact on this issue?
• How has my thinking about this issue changed as a result of my participation in this activity? Am I more open-minded, caring, principled as a result?

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Here are a few posters we made for the Talent Quest:

The sessions before the break passed quite well for the GC. We have started to prepare for the launch of our Talent show: The Kampot Talent Quest. A few weeks back, we started to communicate with the service department regarding the quest. Through this collaboration we were able to devise our action plan for the talent show, and ensure that everything was in keeping with the rules and regulations of Singapore. This will ensure that CLS will be able to benefit from this fundraiser. Collaboration with the service department and the other members of the GC in the last few days, will ensure that my actions as a part of the GC have a positive impact on the community in CLS.

As a result of my participation in this process (and the activity overall), I have begun to understand the complexity of the issue that the community at CLS currently faces: the issue of receiving funds. All this while, I had been under the impression that the funds we sent to CLS were not under a lot of rules and regulations. Being a part of the team that ensures all rules and regulations are met has made me realise that sometimes it is very difficult to transfer funds. This realisation has led me to the understand that sometimes CLS is unable to receive funds due to the sender being unable to upkeep all rules. In a way, I have become more understanding of the issues than I was before.

Here is one of the posters we created for the Talent quest:

The first few sessions of the GC went quite well as we began to investigate what support our partners wanted from us. We also split the team into different teams and began to brainstorm what we could do this year while keeping the current situation in mind. I have been participating in this Global Concern since the last two years so I did know about the issues at hand to some extent. However, this year, I learnt how the students at CLS (the school that we support by providing scholarships to about 30 students and 2 teachers’ salaries) had been impacted by the coronavirus. This issue is quite important because it directly impacts these students’ future circumstances. If these students drop out of school due to COVID, they will not be able to escape the poverty cycle.

Hence, it is especially important to support them in these times. I think my actions (participating in the GC and brainstorming what the year could look like) have had a positive impact on this issue since the aim has been to plan the year in such a way that we are able to maximise our fundraising so that we can support CLS to our maximum capacity. I think that my thinking regarding this issue has changed as a result of participating in this activity. Earlier I was concerned with the issue of  providing quality education to underprivileged children, but now I have become more caring in the sense that I actually think about how education impacts these childrens’ lives. I hope that we are able to fundraise sufficient amounts this year so that no child has to drop out of school.