Whilst it does not hold true for everyone, in many ways modern life has reduced the sense of community many older people value. It is easy with work and home life demands to forget to be a part of the neighbourhood that surrounds us.
A strong community is built on people having regular contact and supporting each other. When someone is having difficulties, in particular older members of our communities, they can still have that sense of community because local people will know them and watch out for them. Community Centres play a vital role in this. They provide a way in which we can all get to know one another, instead of being strangers.
In December our Singapore office chose the Xin Yuan Community Care organisation to be the beneficiary of their Christmas fundraising. The centre provides in-home and centre-based services to elderly people and children from disadvantaged families. These services include: healthy lifestyle talks, basic healthcare and rehabilitative exercises, free tuition and mentoring for students, and free groceries and support services.
Across a number of events the office raised a staggering SGD $6,926. This will be matched by Euromonitor International and then the total donation will be matched again by the National Council of Social Service in Singapore making the final sum donated $27,704.
Below Jocelyn Cheung, a member of the Singapore charity committee, talks about how they raised such a fantastic amount.
This year, Euromonitor Singapore office kick started the Christmas fun with a Charity Bazaar. To shout out about some of the exciting games and activities on that day – there were massages by masseurs from the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped which were very popular and definitely loosened up our colleagues’ tight shoulders. There was also food and children’s booths for colleagues who brought their little ones to the office. Talented Euromonitor bakers prepared tasty local delicacies and baked cookies and cakes for the charity sale. Kids were joyfully entertained making their own pizzas and fondues.
There were also fun and exciting games such as “Minute to win it” and “Guess-the-baby-photos” which employees paid to participate in and raise funds. The popular “Managers’ Sabo Board” where employees could nominate their managers to do a performance, contributed greatly to the funds too.
The annual Christmas dinner which was themed ““Back to the 70s – the decade Euromonitor was founded” saw many of our employees dressing up which was encouraging and enjoyable. Managers led by example and danced to a cheering crowd. In the same breath, the CSR committee and other colleagues hyped the atmosphere too. They lent their vocals or dance moves to raise funds through the “Perform for charity” segment and encouraged their fellow colleagues to make donations.
All in all, both the charity bazaar and Christmas dinner were a huge blast. We believe the funds raised will greatly improve Xin Yuan Community Care in providing better social activities to under-privileged children and elderly in Singapore. On behalf of CSR team, huge thanks to everyone who contributed one way or another towards this success be it at the charity fair, purchasing used electronics for charity or participating in the charity run to Mt Faber.