SINGAPORE – <\/i>After his friends organised a surprise birthday party for him, Aarav Malik, now 19, was inspired to do the same for others.<\/p>\n
In 2024, he started Expedition Joy, to organise birthday parties every quarter for disadvantaged youth and the elderly at partner organisations.<\/p>\n
These include The Salvation Army and Singapore Red Cross.<\/p>\n
Sponsored by the Temasek Foundation OSCAR Fund and private donor Ferns & Philo, the initiative celebrates residents whose birthdays fall in the preceding quarter.<\/p>\n
Parties are held at venues such as Gracehaven Children\u2019s Home and are organised with the help of volunteers.<\/p>\n
This was one of 11 groups featured at the Festival of Deeds by Kids, an event meant to connect socially minded youth.<\/p>\n
Others include Project Phoenix, which teaches latchkey children simple magic tricks to boost their confidence and build public-speaking skills.<\/p>\n
The children put up a performance at the festival on June 5, which was organised by Little But Loud, a ground-up initiative.<\/p>\n
During the event, Little But Loud launched a new platform for social initiatives driven by youth, to help sustain efforts that often start in school but lose momentum once their founders graduate.<\/p>\n
In the coming year, the Network of Deeds by Kids plans to engage over 150 youth, with members receiving mentorship, training and opportunities to work together.<\/p>\n
The June 5 festival is supported by the Temasek Foundation OSCAR Fund, which aims to build an environment of care through ground-up initiatives, and the SG Partnerships Fund, launched by the Singapore Government Partnerships Office to support citizen-led partnerships.<\/p>\n
Little But Loud was founded in 2021 by three siblings who were then aged nine, seven and four, with the support of their parents.<\/p>\n
It started as an idea when their mother was too tired to read them a bedtime story, prompting Lee Jia Ying, now 11, to read to her siblings instead.<\/p>\n
Inspired by the experience, the siblings started organising online reading sessions for underprivileged children and have since expanded their efforts to include other programmes, including one to raise awareness of textile waste and another involving visiting elderly residents.<\/p>\n
The organisation now has over 80 volunteers and plans up to six programmes a year. The volunteers\u2019 ages range from five to 14, and adults play an advisory role.<\/p>\n
They are supported by the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre and the Singapore Silent Heroes movement, and received the Singapore Silent Heroes APEX Award 2024<\/span><\/a> for showing compassion and dedication to their communities.<\/p>\n Co-founder of Little But Loud Lee Jun Kai, who is the oldest sibling at 13, said: \u201cWe believe that children can lead in doing good, as long as we trust and empower them to do so.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that it just shows that if youth are given the potential, capacity and opportunity to be, we have the potential to do great things as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Little But Loud was founded in 2021 by siblings (from left) Lee Jun Kai, Lee Jun Yi and Lee Jia Ying.<\/p>\n ST PHOTO: GIN TAY<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Another group featured at the event was Project Integrate, a legacy carried across generations of Hwa Chong Institution students.<\/p>\n It focuses on integrating migrant workers into society by giving them local experiences, such as an outing to Kampong Gelam for Hari Raya celebrations, to build a sense of belonging.<\/p>\n Brian Ong, 16, said: \u201cWe hope that migrant workers can feel welcome in Singapore because they do so much, and they deserve to be part of our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n Project Integrate received the Deed by Kids APEX Award at the festival, which was presented to the best overall youth-led social innovation.<\/p>\n Former Singapore president Halimah Yacob with Project Integrate members at the Festival of Deeds by Kids on June 5.<\/p>\n ST PHOTO: GIN TAY<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The event was attended by former president Halimah Yacob, who is the chancellor of the Singapore University of Social Sciences.<\/p>\n During a fireside chat, Halimah said: \u201cSo long as you have a heart, a care, you love people, and you want to contribute, that is a starting point.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s high time we listen to kids, to children, to young people, because they have their own ideas as to what they want from the future and how to contribute to the economy and to society.\u201d<\/p>\n Halimah said the most striking aspect of the event was that it was \u201crun by young people, from the emcees to those running the show. It\u2019s absolutely refreshing. I feel very energised and hopeful\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE – After his friends organised a surprise birthday party for him, Aarav Malik, now 19, was inspired to do the same for others. In…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/picture><\/div>
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