Reflection - Edison Low

For me, service means to help others who are in need regardless of who they are. Learning is not just about gaining knowledge, but also understanding others and their feelings and for example adapting to help one feel better if they are feeling down. I would like to join the RES-L Programme as I think it is very meaningful to be able to help others and also animals, our top choice. The animals from the SPCA are homeless and although I have seen and read much about their plight, I have not made a difference to help them. This project will allow me to help people or animals directly. I hope that I can learn skills such as how to take care of an animal as I have never had a pet. I also hope that I can appreciate what I have even more after seeing how little others have. I think I am a considerably caring person which will be able to help me help others. I think some challenges encountered would include not being able to connect with the children or animals at first. Children might be a little easier but animals would not trust you at first, but if you show genuine care and concern they will begin to trust you.

Reflection - Brent Tan

Service to me is the simple act of providing help to one in need. I believe that this act should be done willingly and with passion. When performing a service for someone, we should whole-heartedly put our best effort into it to provide the best possible help we can offer. Learning on the other hand is acquiring new knowledge and skills. Through this process, it is quite likely that our perspectives would be changed greatly. I would like to join this programme in order to gain higher levels of empathy with the less fortunate people and beings in the country. After being blessed with the higher opportunities I have been given, I wish to give back to the community in the form of helping those less fortunate. From this RES-L programme, I hope to learn to humble myself and to realize that serving people or a cause is not beneath anyone. I believe myself to possess tactfulness that would allow me to avoid spouting out insensitive comments by accident to sensitive parties. Also I have the patience needed to interact with younger children. Finally I believe I have the determination and passion to put my best effort into service that would allow me to reap reasonable results in the projects. One potential challenge I foresee is having to split my time between schoolwork, CCA and this project efficiently. My CCA would cause heavy problems in my schedule due to the competition season arriving and the increase in training sessions. However I intend to try my best to draw up a schedule that would allow me to allocate time efficiently. Lastly, another pertinent problem would be me having trouble communicating with the parties I will be attempting to serve. This can be solved by a heart-to-heart talk with the other party.

Reflection - Timothy Shong

Service is the act of sharing what we have to people who are not as fortunate in our society. Learning is educating an individual to gain new knowledge and values which would subsequently allow him to mature and be more understanding of the world around him. The reason why I would like to join RE-SL Programme is because I would like to use this opportunity to do my part for society. At the same time, I would be able to do a project which I find interesting with friends. From the programme, I hope to acquire qualities such as responsibility and the ability to interact with animals/people of different backgrounds. I believe I have experience in taking care of small children and have pets of my own before, so participating in the animals or young children areas would not be as tough for us. I have some experience and knowledge in the music area and I can share this knowledge with others. Some challenges we might face is the lack of communication between the organization we would be working in or even with the people we are trying to help. I am confident that we would be accustomed to this over time and we would have improved communications and understand each other better.

Reflection - Benjamin Wong

To me, service is the art of helping those in need and bringing a smile to their face. Learning is the act of acquiring skills and knowledge which contribute to making me a better person. I would like to join the RES-L Programme as I want to have an opportunity to do a project that I would really enjoy, as well as do my part for the society at the same time. I hope that I will be able to learn qualities like leadership and responsibility through this project. I have had some experience taking care of animals and small children, so I think I am suitable for projects in this field. I also take up guitar lessons and can share some of my knowledge with these children. We will definitely face challenges during our project, such as miscommunication with the organization we are working with, or not knowing how to complete our task. We have to make sure that we are very clear about what work we have to do and how we do it.

Reflection - Yishu

Well, as a kid, I'm very sure my art was terrible. In fact, so terrible, i wasn't graded in art because my teacher in kindergarten did not know what i was making. My experiences as a child with art was not very colorful as I am constantly reminded about my lack of the knack in art. For example, going back to the simplest form of art known to me at that time: a simple pencil drawing on a piece of drawing block. Most of the singular objects in my diagram was barely recognisable.

From my experience, I do not think the art education system in Singapore for kindergartens is very extensive. In my days, teachers treated art more as a irrelevant subject, and the point of the lesson was to get through it as fast as possible in order to move on to more critical lessons, like teaching grammar and maths. When my horrid drawings were shown to the teacher, (to the best of my memory), nothing was actually done to teach me drawing tactics and how to draw neatly. I believe art, (after doing some reflection on my own and some research), can be a way to express one's feelings, to serve as a form of stress therapy, and can be used to garner's a kid's attention in class and to get him to open up. This is especially so for young children. Many young children, are extremely reserved during the development stages of their lives, in kindergarten. Art can be a way to get them to open up. What they might not wish to verbalize, they might transcribe it into a drawing or a work of art. It is a silent act, making it more comfortable for some children.

Expression in the form of art might be a good way to kickstart our project and use it as a direction to head to. We can use art as a way to encourage the children in Little Wings to be open-minded to situations and let them be more active.

With a little luck, we might just change some lives.