Promoting Volunteering to Children & Families

STARTING YOUNG - BUILDING A NATION OF VOLUNTEERS

Hi! We are 2 siblings, Zach (aged 8) and Sara (aged 7).

We are primary school students living here in Singapore. Each year we undertake a creative project to raise funds for charitable causes. From a very young age, our parents have always impressed upon us the importance of helping others.

• In February 2020, we created "Lil Brushes" so that we could use our love of art to raise funds for charity. For our first project we sold notebooks with our hand-painted designs on the cover. The proceeds were all donated to a special needs charity. Currently, we are selling face-masks featuring our designs and donating the proceeds to an animal welfare association. If interested, please visit our website: www.lilbrushes.com
• Last year, during the COVID-19 circuit breaker, we partnered with the Ministry of Social & Family Development to produce a series of seven (7) videos, entitled "@Playtime with Zach & Sara". Each video shared a different-stay-at-home activity that children can do with their parents during the lock-down period.

This year, we want to promote and encourage VOLUNTEERING. Our idea is to produce & host a series of children's educational videos. We will feature up to 5 different not-for-profit organisations operating in Singapore. (Why not just give your donations directly to a charity you ask? We believe that we can make a more lasting and valuable contribution to a wider range of charities and welfare associations by making these videos).

Through these videos we aim to:

• build a nation of volunteers
• encourage children to get involved by contributing their time and/or raising funds, and
• highlight the important contributions made by Singapore's charities & welfare organisations

Each episode will focus on a different not-for-profit organisation and will include:

• an overview of what the group does
• an interview with some of the volunteers / staff
• profiles of those who benefit from their work
• details of how children and families can volunteer and/or donate to support a good cause

Examples of the organisations that we plan to feature are listed below:

• ACRES (Wildlife Rescue)
• Willing Hearts Soup Kitchen (Meal providers)
• Causes for Animals (Animal Welfare)
• It’s Raining Raincoats (Migrant Workers)
• Lions Befrienders (Aged support)
• Seven Clean Seas (Beach clean-up)
• MINDS (intellectually disabled)

Our videos will be shared widely on social media, on our Lil’ Brushes website, and will be made available freely to the featured charities. We plan to offer the videos to the Ministry of Education, and we are already in discussions with the Ministry of Social And Family Development with the same offer.

100% of your kind donations will go towards production costs - hiring a video and production crew to record & edit the episodes.

Giving back to society is an integral part of our Singapore culture and we think that our videos can help make a real difference. Our message?

"It's never too young to get involved in volunteering, and we can do it together as a family!"