Under No Roof 2005

Today, I got up early to go to Bestway Building at Tanjong Pagar to volunteer as a facilitator for Under No Roof 2005. It's an annual event organised by Habitat for Humanity, Singapore (HFHSg) to raise the awareness among youths to the plight of the needy and homeless around the globe. This year, the event was mainly planned by junior college students, and the programme basically comprised two sections:

• An 'Amazing Race' portion in which the youths had to solve puzzles to get to checkpoints, whereupon they had to successfully carry out an activity in order to 'earn' building materials such as newspapers, cardboard and masking tape, and
• A 'Slum City' portion in which they had to construct a temporary shelter with the materials they had collected.

The day got off to a wet start, but the shower subsided by about 8 am and the rest of the day was much cooler than usual. I was paired up with another volunteer to serve as facilitators of a team of 10 junior college students. These youngsters were a great bunch, very friendly, outspoken and enthusiastic -- well, enthusiastic enough. :) As a facilitator, I had to ensure the team moved safely from checkpoint to checkpoint, and that they played the games by the rules. And well...they did. ;)

Unfortunately, my team didn't finish all the checkpoints on time. But they were in good spirits, and the cardboard-cum-plastic-tubing house that they built received the most commendations from the judges, passers-by and fellow participants. Good job, Team #40! :)

The team which scored the highest points overall -- Team #37 -- won themselves a subsidised two-way trip to Sri Lanka for a Habitat build. Way to go!