Act One: SMOU Back to School Bazaar – Care for the Young - SeaVoices - Singapore Maritime Officers’ Union (SMOU) Publication

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03 Feb 2021

3 mins

Act One: SMOU Back to School Bazaar – Care for the Young

One of the ways SMOU is commemorating its 70^th Anniversary is by putting its core value of “Caring and Sharing” into action through an initiative involving seven acts of Corporate Social Responsibility. With these acts, SMOU hopes to make an impact by giving to the community and lifting up the lives of others.

This project kicked off with the First Act, “SMOU Back to School Bazaar – Care for the Young,” on 13 January 2021.

SMOU President Mr Rahim Jaffar, SMOU General Secretary Ms Mary Liew, and Young SMOU Chairman Mr Dominic Yong headed down to the child-care centre with gifts and school supplies prepared for the children of SMOU’s adopted child-care centre, My First Skool Jalan Sultan Centre, at the start of the new school year. The items were given to children of lower-income families to extend a helping hand and to ease off some financial burden that might come from starting the new school term. Gifts include useful back-to-school items like backpacks, multi-purpose pouches, stationary sets, activity books, and ‘POPULAR’ bookstore gift vouchers for the purchase of other school supplies.

To protect the health of children and to observe safe management measures, the gifts were presented to the Principal of the child-care centre, Ms Shanthi, who will have the gifts distributed to the children separately.

On behalf of the staff and children of the child-care centre, I would like to express my thanks to SMOU for your generosity. As the school year has just begun, the gifts were very timely for the children. They are not only helpful for them to study and improve academically, but also to learn kindness and giving, which SMOU has extended and demonstrated to them.”

– Ms Shanthi, Principal of My First Skool Jalan Sultan Centre

Present at the school were also Deputy CEO of NTUC First Campus Mrs Phoon Chew Ping and Chief Child Support Officer Ms Louis Chng. They shared with SMOU officials about the reach and good work that the Bright Horizons Fund (BHF) has been able to do for its beneficiaries over the past year. A cheque of $40,000 was also presented as part of SMOU’s commitment in 2019 to support the BHF to enable children from low-income families to receive quality preschool education and classroom experiences. Mrs Phoon received the cheque presented by SMOU officials on behalf of the NTUC First Campus for the contribution. To thank SMOU for the helping hand that they have extended across the years, the children of the centre wrote a card and made gifts as tokens of appreciation to SMOU.

The hand-made beautiful gifts were evidence of the talented and precious children that SMOU has been able to make an impact on, giving them opportunities for education and learning.

It is a great start to SMOU’s journey of giving, and with six more occasions ahead, it will be a blessing to others!