Identifying opportunities to touch lives
As part of ongoing efforts to give back to our community, our colleagues in Mumbai spent an afternoon last December playing handball with 40 children from the Dharavi area, one of Asia’s biggest slums.
The match was the latest initiative in our partnership with Magic Bus, a non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to serving the most marginalized children across India. Temasek has been involved with the NGO since 2012, giving monetary support and donating laptops to their youth centres.
According to a Harvard Business Review report in 2009, Dharavi was home to 700,000 people. Packed into 2.5km2 of land, it is one of the most densely populated places in the world.
The day began with a sing-along to break the ice with the children, followed closely by a quick handball practice session. Not long after, staff and children took to the pitch, putting their handball skills to work.
Playing sports can be a great unifier and leveler. Beyond engaging the children and instilling a sense of camaraderie, part of Magic Bus’s aim was to help them realize girls and boys could perform equally as well.
“It was heartening to see boys and girls being given equal opportunity in sports as well as education,” said Vibha Parikh, Office Manager of Temasek’s Mumbai office. “During our afternoon with them, the children took the initiative to break the ice and got our staff involved in the games. Their enthusiasm and energy were quite contagious.”
After a long and sweaty round of matches, our colleagues and children sat down for a hard-earned meal together, cementing a bond that prompted one of the training officers to describe the Temasek event as one where everyone “got involved like family.”
The children, too, evidently enjoyed themselves. “I liked playing with all Bhaiyya (brothers) and Didi (sisters) of Temasek. We enjoyed spending time with them,” 10-year-old Rishikesh Karande enthused. “They are so big but they are still learning. I will also get educated so that I can also work in such a big office”.
In partnership with Temasek Trust, MediaCorp has put together a series of eight mini TV documentaries that feature some of the work carried out by our Non Profit Philanthropic Organisations. The documentaries are broadcast in turn each month on ‘Spotlight’, Channel NewsAsia's Sunday Night News Bulletin.
Using Technology in Stroke Therapy
Source: Channel NewsAsia via Youtube
Nurturing Young Talent
Featuring the work of Temasek Education Foundation & Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory
This segment centres on how Temasek Education Foundation (TEF), via the David Marshall Endowment, has funded various programmes at the School of Arts to help groom and support promising young students in the areas of dance, sports and music. It also features a young scientist from TLL and the role that the scholarship he received from TLL has played in his development, as well as his hopes and dreams for the future.
Source: Channel NewsAsia via Youtube
Tsunami - 10 Years On
Featuring the work of Temasek Foundation & Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory
This third mini documentary in the series of eight reviews the redevelopment work Temasek Foundation (TF) and TLL did in Aceh, Indonesia, in the wake of the 2004 Tsunami. The Tsunami caused giant waves to crash into coastal communities more than five kilometres inland, destroying about 20,000 hectares of farmland. As a result of being flooded by salt water from the tsunami, large areas of rice fields in the province became unsuitable for farming. The Aceh rice project helped rebuild the region and develop new rice.
Source: Channel NewsAsia via Youtube
Youths Go Green
Featuring young nature lovers and the work of the Singapore Technologies Endowment Programme (STEP)
This segment highlights what some youths are doing to learn more about the environment and what they can do to help protect it. The second half of the mini documentary features how our own STEP Sunburst Youth Environment Camp helps groom the next generation of environmental leaders among the youths of Singapore and Asia. Participants, organisers and volunteer guides were interviewed at the camps opening ceremony and at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve during this week-long programme focused on the environment.
Source: Channel NewsAsia via Youtube
Fighting Infectious Diseases
Featuring the work of Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory
This mini documentary looks at how TLL’s research helps combat infectious diseases in Singapore including developing diagnostic tool kits for SARS, vaccines for bird flu and other infectious diseases, such as Asian Influenza (H1N1, H5N1) and Hand Foot and Mouth Disease. It also features some of TLL’s laboratories, including a mobile Biosafety Level Three Lab, which can be transported to areas affected by an outbreak of infectious disease.
Source: Channel NewsAsia via Youtube
Help for Children with Special Needs
Featuring the work of Temasek Cares and the Singapore Millennium Foundation
This segment, “Special Needs Children”, explores the efforts of Temasek Cares and the SMF to help support families and educators of children with special needs, and particularly children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Two Temasek Cares programmes; SAFE (Support Autism through Family Empowerment) and ISSPA (Integration Support Programme for Pre-schoolers with Autism) are featured, including a family which has directly benefited from the ISSPA programme.
SMF’s Virtual Pink Dolphin project is also highlighted in this segment which features Prof Cai Yiyu of Nanyang Technological University, creator of the 3D dolphin software which helps children with ASD improve their communication skills.
Source: Channel NewsAsia via Youtube
Tackling Emerging Diseases
Featuring the work of Temasek Foundation and Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory
This segment focuses on the partnership between TF and TLL as they share knowledge of biorisk management and emerging infectious diseases with professionals in five ASEAN countries (Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam). The programme aims to strengthen each country’s national health development resources in capacity building, surveillance, information sharing, research and training for laboratory biosafety and biosecurity, in order to prevent cross border outbreaks.
Source: Channel NewsAsia via Youtube
Youths Paying It Forward
Featuring the work of the Singapore Technologies Endowment Programme
This segment highlights how youth in Singapore are being encouraged to support the less fortunate. Two programmes founded and run by STEP alumni are profiled: the Kampung Spirit Project, and the Boy’s Town Project.
The Kampung Spirit Project aims to keep the spirit of community togetherness alive, by helping needy families while managing their progress over a three-year period, while the Boy's Town Project, now in its fifth year, provides both academic coaching and mentorship to the residents of Boy's Town, an institution which shelters and helps educate disadvantaged youths.
Source: Channel NewsAsia via Youtube