Games Day!

Today, we had a session filled with fun and laughter. As this week was recess week, only a few of us met up in school for dinner before heading to the home. Despite the fact that it is recess week, the volunteers turn up was nonetheless good!

This week’s games session is slightly different as there is no game master, and we were asked to bring card or board games if we have any. So basically, we had a “minds cafe” session at Blk D. We were given games like UNO, UNO Stacko, Mother Sheep, Headbands, Risk and Poker Cards. Some of these games are brand new! Then we were assigned games and split into groups to play. I was in charge of Headbands, together with Celine. This game is basically like Indian Poker, where we have to wear bands on our heads and a card with a picture that we are supposed to guess. Rule of the game is that we can only ask yes or no questions within a limited time. At first, the boys in my group were rather reluctant to play as the box of the game says “For Kids”, and we look rather silly wearing the headbands (we looked very much like Sun Wukong). However, after much persuasion, we started playing the game, and it turned out to be really fun. =) They had so much fun they actually changed the rules and it became like a charade, with the guesser not having to ask any questions but the members acting out the answer.

As I looked around the room, everyone was having lots of fun, with Ah Chai’s group getting really excited and loud with their card games. Rabin and his boy were absorbed in their game of Risk, and Jianwen was playing with his Sheep game, which he was the only big fan of. The other room sounded like they were having fun too!
Our session ended later than usual due to some of us still playing and not willing to leave until the game ended. All in all, volunteers and the boys bonded really well, and enjoyed themselves tremendously.

1 of the games - RISK a game of global domination


By Yan Sing

Drugs and You

Today, 1st of March, Chin Han, Boon Meng, me , and the other 5 volunteers for Block B(Yoke Wen) and Boys Hostel(Chen Hui, Hui Min, Desmond, Frederick) attended Drugs Training and Dialogues organised by MCYS(Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports) at MCYS community hall, 17th level, MCYS builiding.

All volunteers that attended the training

MCYS building

Due to some technical problem, we arrived late at MCYS building at about 230pm, but the training supposed to be started at 2pm. We quickly rushed into the training hall and we saw alot other individual volunteers and employers also attended that training as well.
Our speaker of Drugs Training, Mr Eddy Razali (refer picture below)

Mr Eddy, Drugs Training speaker

Mr Eddy's presentation

We also given a nice brochure which inside contained of alot useful informations about drugs

Drugs and You brochure

Mr Eddy shown us alot of informations and figures of different drugs such as Subutex(which cost $120 per tablet),Cannabis(Ganja, is a kind of plant which originally green in color like seaweed), Cocaine, Ecstasy(known as playboy),Heroin (Pek Hoon),Ketamine(Vitamin K),'Ice', Inhalants(Glue-sniffing) and others. Besides that, he also told us some of the effects and dangersof drugs, what are withdrawal symptoms and also the penalties of possessing, consuming or trafficking drugs. Moreover he shown us pictures of people getting strokes of cane on their backside(very ugly!!).

Subutex

Cannabis


Heroin


Ketamine


Methamphetamine or 'Ice'


Inhalants


Ecstasy

Effects,Dangers and Penalties of possession or consumption of Ecstasy

We also been told that ladies must beware if someone treat you a bottle of mineral water, that person maybe injected Ketamine into it without your known and let you drink. Ketamine can cause you unable to move, distort your judgement and cause confusion. In order to prevent it, shake the bottle u received before you drink it. If the bottle contained Ketamine, you will see alot of white bubbles after you shake it, so DON'T ever drink it.

Moreover, do you wonder why Ecstasy producers want to risk their clients' life by adding rat poisons and pendaflour tube glasses into Ecstasy?? It is because glasses are used to cut your stomach inner part to increase absorption of drugs whereas rat poisons are used in order to prevent blood clogging .(Very cruel!!)

Ecstasy will caused hallucination, inability to think, see and co-ordinate properly,jaw clenching, teeth grinding and uncontrollable shaking. How to control a people after he/she has consuming Ecstasy, there is a special solution where you put a pacifier into his/her mouth,then he/she will calm down more and won't shake that aggressively.
These are some of the special knowledge that we learned from Mr Eddy.

After the drugs training, there is another Dialogue session with a MCYS officer.

MCYS officer

She shared with us that Boys and Girls Homes have plenty of programmes are being held with different purposes. Below are list of programmes:
1.Stop, Think and Do
2.Emotional Intelligence Programme
-eliminate the use of violence
-conflict resolution skills
-interactions among residents
3.Parenting and family Bonding Groupwork
4.Outdoor adventure learning
-experienced learning
-develop team spirit, trust, responsibility and accountability
5.Sexuality Workshop
-sexuality and sexual development issue
-danger of unprotected sex
6.Anti Drug Programme
7.Preparatory programme for Day Release Scheme (DRS)
8.Job Preparation Programme
-residents learn to write resume, job application, interviews
-interest in finding a job
-conducted before their placement on DRS
9.Service Learning Programme(Teen A.C.T.S)
-self development, reflection, project management
-recognise their strength and weaknesses and to affirm one and another
10.Preparatory programme for dischange
-cope stresses from community
11.Recovery and Empowerment for Sexually Abused Vistims(RES)
12.Self Harm Intervention Programme (SHIP)
-understand their self harm tendencies
13.Support Group for Young and/or Expectant Mother
-insight into different stage of pregnancy,caregiving
(Programme 11 to 13 are for Girls Home)
14.Positive Adolescent Sexuality Treatment (PAST)-Boys Home

-residents with sexual offenses or those with history of sexualised behaviours
15.Violence Prevention Programme(VPP)
-help those with history of violence/ aggresive
-mange anger in a positive manner
16.Theft Intervention Programme (TIP)
-theft is a common offense in Home
-help those history of chronic pilfering
-prevent theft offending cycle
-relapse prevention plan
17.Spectrum Rainbows Programme
-help single parent families

Then we have our refreshment before we continued another dialogue with the same MCYS officer.

Chin Han having his delicious food


Discussion between Boon Meng and Mr Eddy

The second dialogue was conducted in another room where we giving our feedbacks to MCYS officer about what we have done during our sessions in Home. Besides that, we also suggested that more workshops and trainings to be held in future for NTU volunteers.

In the room where second dialogue was conducted. We brought in food as well. Haha

After the second dialogue, we reached the end of our 2-3 hours training. We took our last photos with MCYS officers before we left.

Charade Game

Today, we had a wonderful day with the boys, as it was our games day with them! We played charade with the boys and it was a lot of fun as it helped us to get to know the boys, and bridge the gap between us.

It all started of with dividing the boys into 3 different groups and each of us had to join a group. The main purpose of the game was that each of us had to follow the actions of the previous person in a line and ultimately, the last person had to guess a word or phrase that was related to the actions. At first, the game did not go according to plan as some of the boys told the answer to the last player. However it did not last long as there was an introduction of the ‘three tall pillars’. Jun Han, Jun Wei and our beloved blockhead, Jian Wen, went to distract the view of the last person by using their height and size. It was indeed amusing as you could see them moving around, waving their hands, trying to prevent them from discussing the answer.

My group was next to take part in the charade. I was the first to act out the actions to the next person. However, when it was Seow Hong’s turn, instead of just acting out Zorro, he went on to do push ups and other hilarious stuffs. It really made everyone laugh. The best part was that he was supposed to act out Harry Porter. He went to touch his goatee and started jumping from one side to another. I guess he was trying to say ‘Hairy Portable’.

The day was filled with laughter and brought us closer to the boys, getting to know them better. All these would not have happened without the game masters’ thorough planning. Thus I would like to thank them for their effort and making the game a successful one.
By Teng Xiang

Double reasons to celebrate

If you think a dinner beside the river that serves Indonesia’s delicacies such as Sambal sting ray, grilled chicken and satay will burn a big hole in your wallet, then volunteers from Block D and hostel can prove you otherwise!

On 2/2/2008, a lovely Saturday evening, volunteers from Blk D and hostel namely Chin han, Daisy, Hui wen, Huikoon, Khalisah, Boon ming, Yan sing, Hock heng, Jia yin, Chen hui, Hui ming, Desmond, Shikai(later part of the day) and me went down to Riverside Indonesia Restaurant to celebrate CNY and Daisy’s 21st Birthday! Before the main course, we did the Lau “yu sheng”.


It was a MESS. Everyone ate a lot that day especially Boon ming and Hock heng who each ate one wooden tub of rice! Guess they were really very hungry. =) After the dinner, we brought out the cake which we especially bought to celebrate Daisy’s 21st Birthday. I hoped the element of surprise was still there because she didn’t really look surprised when she saw the cake. We played a tiny prank on daisy by asking her to eat Wasabe, Chilli, Soya sauce and coffee before we gave her the present. Happy 21st Birthday DAISY!

We decided to walk to the “colourful bridge” after the dinner as we didn’t want to go home that early. After taking a few pics at the bridge, we proceeded on to Chinatown to get a feel of the CNY ambience and also check out the delicious CNY goodies. After squeezing out from the crowd in Chinatown, we headed towards Boat Quay where we played the Sparkles. We literally SMOKED out the area as the whole place was filled with smoke due to the sparkles! It was a miracle that no one mistook that as a fire breakout and called the Civil Defence.
It was around 11.40pm when we were done with the sparkles. Some of us went home while some of us stayed on to hang out at the nearby Mac to chill before taking a cab home. Everyone was happy at the end of the day all thanks to the superb planning by Hui wen. To end off, I would like to wish everyone a Happy Lunar New Year! =)

By Jianwen