Welcome to Character & Leadership Academy, where we continue to equip, empower and engage young people in Singapore and internationally! We spent the last few months of 2016 reminiscing and revisiting our past achievements of our 10 years. I was touched to have so many of our past youth participants becoming interns, staff and volunteers, because they believe in the work we do – why we do what we
do. As the demographic and profile of our youths changes, CLA recognises the need to expand our capabilities and capacity to meet these growing needs. We are in preliminary stages of master planning for program expansion – reaching out to 500,000 youths globally and locally, facilitating the achieving of greater self and society growth through experiential and outdoor learning. As the theme suggests above, 2 key areas we will be investing in;
“Youth empowerment” which is an attitudinal, structural, and cultural process whereby young people gain the ability to make decisions and implement change in their own lives and the lives of other people in school, community and country and
“Transformation of Youth Leaders” – a process where we encourage and create platforms for our youths to be world-ready, youths of character, purpose and heart. Our organisation seeks to engage, empower and equip youths (both locally and globally) of today with the essential personal development, leadership skills as well as the appropriate character traits because we believe that personal values and characters are the key foundation and life-smith of every youth, with the hope that youths will be able to lead effectively with pride and integrity. Some campaign we run this year includes:
A campaign aimed to encourage graciousness by ensuring that citizens who have higher risk of contracting the Novel Coronavirus are better equipped with the necessary hygiene items and knowledge to battle the spread. The teams have set aside a sum of money and manpower to purchase and manually prepare bottles of hand sanitisers to give away during this period. They plan to ensure that elderly citizens receive them, together with specific information on cleanliness to help battle the spread of the virus.
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Operation RoofUp ( ) aims to give aid to groups of displaced students and stranded malaysian workers during this hard time. We worked closely with various organisations that possess campsites as well as individual’s residences, to open up lodging spaces at minimal or no cost to house these students and stranded workers. This movement was not only to ensure that there is a roof over the heads of all in Singapore during the Covid 19 Pandemic, but to also provide encouragement and hope to all who feel that society might have forgotten them, during their time away from their loved ones. During this time when we don't have much business, we are looking for ways to innovate at the same time help society with whatever resources we have or can get.
: Masking the Essential:
We have noted that there are individuals who, because of the new social distancing measures, might affect others around them who are more vulnerable to Covid-19. Therefore, we provided a set of 15 masks to individuals who essentially need them, specifically:
• Individuals who are sick or have medical conditions that Covid19 may pose a threat to them, Caretakers who are taking care of sick at home and Individual who is on self-imposed / government directed stay home notice and is staying with seniors or someone who has a medical condition
also aidded taxi drivers who are greatly affected by the pandemic by helping them alleviate their rental costs. Masks were sent through Taxi Drivers who have volunteered to aid with the transportation of the masks to the home during off peak hours.
