BACH: Empowering Underprivileged Children
A key moment of my SUSS journey included my time as a student volunteer with Befriending and Coaching Humanitarian (BACH) at Care Corner Singapore during the pandemic in 2021. I spent my free time alongside other SUSS peers tutoring primary school students in Math, English, and Science.
In this reflective essay, I will highlight:
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Some of the broader issues relating to underprivileged youths and the reason for choosing this specific community
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My experience as a volunteer, and areas of strength and growth for myself
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What social consciousness and civic responsibility means to me
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Future actions I would take to advocate / further my involvement in this vulnerable community
Underprivileged Children & Youths
Children from the bottom 20% of our society receive lesser access to financial and social resources compared to other peers with better socio-economic statuses (Ng, 2018), and that gap increases over time, becoming prominent by the time children enter primary education. Because of that, these children are 4 times more likely to be low-performing students (Teng, 2017).
This community has always resonated with me because growing up, I was a less privileged child, but was fortunate enough to receive financial assistance throughout my educational years. There were times I struggled through my studies as my family was unable to afford tuition, but thanks to the wonderful teachers who looked out for me socially and financially, I was still able to thrive in our education system. In my primary years, because of the free tuition provided by teachers at the neighborhood student care center, I could understand the materials taught in school. I did not come this far by my own efforts but through God and the support of the people around me.
As such, I firmly believe that everyone deserves a good quality education and should not be limited by their socioeconomic status. Hence, I decided to return to society by tutoring less-privileged primary school kids. I hoped to uplift these children, so that they may have the same access to education as their peers.
This was during the pandemic, which underscored the educational disparities exacerbated by remote learning. Not every student can adapt to remote learning – at times it is harder to clarify the content you are learning, and it is much easier to lose focus. Furthermore, for less-privileged children who may not have access to tuition amidst the pandemic, free tuition is much more important for them and is something that could make real impact on their lives.
Tutoring Amidst the Pandemic
Twice a month, for 2-3 hours each, a group of us BACH volunteers would convene over Zoom to conduct games, activities and lessons on English, Math, or Science to the children at Care Corner Singapore. We would plan the activities together, and source for questions of varying difficulty levels to engage the children, so that it met the learning pace of each child – some do better with simpler questions, but if they’re more familiar with the subject, they would feel a stronger sense of accomplishment from answering more difficult questions. Here are some examples:
Fun fact: Something we’d always do was to start the session with 5 minutes of exercise, though the kids often complained of having to do these exercises, haha.
Some of the skills I demonstrated as a volunteer were:
1. Adaptability & Flexibility
Sometimes we would design more content than needed for the session, so we had to play by ear as to when we would end certain segments of our activities so that we could allocate enough time to other sections. E.g. If we planned to play a game after 1.5 hours of doing questions with the kids, we may cut short the number of questions done to ensure that the kids had enough time to play the game.
2. Creative Thinking
We had to be creative as a team to find engaging activities for the kids to do over Zoom.
Games included:
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Charades
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Guess the character/object based on the image provided
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Riddles, and more!
Here are some notable activities – have fun guessing!
Here, we did drawing charades – the seniors (us) and the kids would take turns to draw the prompts.
E.g., The first prompt could be Baymax, so we would draw it over the Zoom whiteboard and the kids would have to guess.
Then, we would switch over.
We also introduced a “wild card” option – where the kids could pick someone to draw anything and the seniors would have to guess.
Sometimes, we would change up the way we asked questions to make it more fun for the kids.
E.g., We would turn the questions into a bingo board for the kids to choose the kind of questions they wanted to do and have a point system to encourage some form of competition for the kids so that it was more engaging.
3. Communication
We had to demonstrate strong communication skills to coordinate the virtual session. Sometimes we would have technical issues, such as connection problems, so we would take over for the person who was momentarily disconnected from engaging the kids.
4. Time Management
Since this was voluntary, each of us had to manage our time well so that we could make time to participate and engage the kids. During the session, we also had to watch the clock so that we did not overrun.
The Impact of Volunteering
Throughout my volunteering journey with BACH, there was one constant: I was just so amazed and happy to see how willing the children were to engage with us over Zoom. Though we missed that physical touch/interaction that a real-life encounter would provide (as opposed to seeing people on a screen), the kids all had fun playing games with us and answering the questions we provided them. They were vibrant children, and I hope that they never lose that spark within them to find out what they want to achieve and go for it. Seeing that makes me want to continue volunteering in this community after I graduate.
Before volunteering, I had some expectations that the kids would be full of energy but was more worried that the kids would not want to participate since they could find it boring. I never interacted with kids over a virtual meeting before – I only interacted with them physically when I went on a trip with people of the same faith to a village in Indonesia – and they were, similarly, full of life. My time has BACH has made me want to continue volunteering in this community in the future so that I could continue to see the fullness of life in these children – something that we seem to lose when we grow up and become burdened with responsibilities.
Looking back, I particularly enjoyed the sessions where we taught them Math and Money since these are concepts that I gravitate towards. There were some difficult questions and yet the children managed to answer them. Here are some examples:
Social Consciousness and Civic Responsibility
My time at BACH has made me a little more conscious of underprivileged children and their situations. Reading about this community opened my eyes to the setbacks that these children may face – without the resources that other children may have, these children are more likely to underperform in their studies and progress much slower that other children their age – but it is not because of their learning disabilities, but simply because they have been denied the resources that they should have had access to. In that situation, volunteers and NGOs are all the more needed to fill in these gaps between home and school, and care centres like these provide these children with a supportive environment and like-minded peers that would help them learn to interact with other people, rather than feel alone and abandoned.
Hence, if I could contribute in this community through volunteering, then I would want to continue doing so.
Looking Towards the Future
I would love to volunteer with BACH again after graduation – where life is not so hectic, or I would like to volunteer with REACH Community Services under their Works of Art pillar, since I enjoy arts and crafts and I would love to impart my brush calligraphy and drawing skills to underprivileged kids.
I hope to provide free tuition in POA or Math to the underprivileged as well.