Meet our Volunteers
Vivian Heng
The Civic District Dash
Vivian Heng, a member of the regular volunteer group at SPD, the Freedom Adventure Club, writes about the thrills and spills of the fun-filled event of the Dash. This article was published in the July 2008 issue of ExtraPage.
Fans of The Amazing Race would have relished SPD’s very own version of the contest, The Civic District Dash.
On 15 March, the participants hailing from the Specialised Case Management Programme geared up for an enjoyable afternoon organised by the Freedom Adventure Club of SPD. Besides fun, the event also aimed at introducing the participants to a bit of the history of Singapore.
The race took the participants from the Asian Civilisation Museum to explore the historical sites along the Civic District, and ended in the evening with a concert at the Esplanade.
Clients and volunteers were split into two teams which outdid and outperformed each other with their acting skills at skits, cracked their heads looking for clues at the treasure hunt, and were extremely good at charades.
The history of Singapore came alive when the participants acted out how trading was carried out by the Singapore River with coolies carrying bags of rice and where colourful and hard bargaining took place. Treasure hunting around the Victoria Concert Hall was exciting with wheelchairs whizzing around, participants prodding every bush, and searching around the Sir Stamford Raffles statute.
The eyes of 8-year-old Li Zhou lit up when he found out that there was going to be a Treasure Hunt. The youngest volunteer in the group looked forward to finding the ‘gold’. “I was a bit nervous at first, but I enjoyed playing and talking to the disabled people who took part,” he said.
At the Cenotaph where war heroes are commemorated, the two teams put their wits to the test trying to guess answers to questions asked not verbally but acted out instead.
The evening ended with a relaxing concert by nanu, an all-female a cappella group, at the Esplanade. Melissa Tan, one of our beneficiaries says “I enjoyed the nanu singers the most because they sang so beautifully. The whole outing was enjoyable as it gave us an opportunity to experience what normal life is like and interacting with the volunteers is like a blending of both worlds.”
Rashedah, a first time volunteer can’t stop talking about the afternoon and finds it a heartwarming and delightful experience filled with lots of passion, patience and endless fun and laughter. She says “It is the smile on their faces that brings so much happiness to me, even better than when I got my first pay cheque”.