Be part of the first Youth Olympic Games taking place
right here in Singapore in August 2010!
You will be a part of history in the making….
NYAA GAHA, National Youth Council and Central Singapore CDC is organising a song project supported by Singapore Youth Olympics Organising Committee (SYOGOC), in celebration of Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games. This project celebrates creativity, self-expression and lets you unleash your talents. It is open to everyone (regardless of race, age or nationality), individuals and/or teams. Songs can be written in English, Chinese, Malay, Indian and/or any other languages (translation of lyrics will be required for non-English songs to facilitate judging). Lyrics should celebrate Olympism and the Olympic values of Excellence, Friendship and Respect. The song is expected to last for 3-5 minutes. There are also no restrictions on the music genre.Our judges will look out for:(a) Lyrical meaning(b) Fit of music composition to the lyrics; and(c) Overall ‘feel’ of the songVocal quality of the performance will not be a veto factor. Shortlisted songs may be played at Singapore 2010-related events. Your songs may also do their rounds on various new media platforms.Winning entries stand a chance to win these prizes -First prize: $1000 and trophy Second prize: $800 and trophyThird prize: $500 and trophy Merit Prize: $250 and Two (2) Merit trophiesSong writers are invited to submit their entries (song lyrics and the finished song product) by 15 January 2010. Successful entries will be notified by the end of January 2010, and will be invited for performances at the Community Life Arts Programme (CLAP!) (Far East Plaza) organised by the Central Singapore CDC. Semi-finals is on 5 February 2010 and Finals on the 5 March 2010. All entries will have to be submitted online at www.singsingapore2010.nyc.sgThere will be a web link to upload your song- simply follow the instructions there. All entries must reach the competition organisers by 15 January 2010. Late entries may not be considered for the competition.For general inquires, please contact:Jennifer MacapagalJenniferM[at]nyaa.orgSheikh JarhomSheikh_Jarhom[at]pa.gov.sg
In August 2010, Singapore will be the focal point of sports youth and international spectators when the Youth Olympic Games debuts in our country. For this significant event, GAHA, together with other organizations, is working with the Singapore Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee (SYOGOC) to organise meaningful activities for the YOG participants.
To gather interesting and unique ideas that would make the event a memorable one for the YOG participants, GAHA Exco initiated a tea session on 9 May 2009 at the NYAA Council. A total of 23 Exco and other GAHA members turned up that Saturday morning to brainstorm ideas for build-up events and activities.
Terence Chia, Chairman of NYAA GAHA started the session by welcoming the group and encouraging them to generate ideas together. To have a better understanding of the sports event, Evelyn Lee, one of our GAHA members on SYOGOC, highlighted some facts about YOG 2010, the organising requirements, as well as funding opportunities from the Young ChangeMakers (YCM) Grant.
For the brainstorming part of the session, the participants formed three workgroups - YOG-Kids, YOG-Environment and YOG-Elderly. A facilitator and a note-taker were assigned to each group. After a fruitful discussion, the individual groups presented their ideas. This sharing process triggered more thinking across the various groups and value-added on the raw ideas. Provisional plans were drafted and the facilitators went on to develop more detailed proposals. Creative ideas that were floated included YOG-Kids-Elderly Carnival, Environmental-friendly YOG Village and others.
Patricia Chia, one of the GAHA members at the session described the experience, “The YOG brainstorming session was a refreshing experience for me as I witnessed youths from numerous backgrounds, bound by the common NYAA experience come together to share their ideas. The GAHA Exco provided a solid framework for the well-facilitated discussions and I appreciated the unique direction of trying to plan activities to promote the three Olympic values to a wider audience - kids and the elderly,that would also carry an environmental message. I look forward to seeing our ideas put into action!”
As a whole, the tea session was successful in generating an interesting mix of ideas. This was owed to a uniquely GAHA mix of energy, diversity and drive to get things done.
Following up from the tea session, a team led by Phua Chao Rong developed and incubated the ideas and submitted the proposals to SYOGOC for the ideas to move from plan to reality. Other GAHA members who volunteered their time in crystallizing the ideas include Gao Yueqiu, Choo Pui Shan, and Jason Pan.
NYAA GAHA was invited to the “Culture and Heritage” CAN! Discover at *SCAPE Youth Park on 18 April 2009. (Singapore 2010 CAN! aims to bring youths together for the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games (YOG). It encourages youths to Create. Action. Now! to celebrate and be part of the world’s first YOG in different ways!) Together, GAHA Exco members Gary Shen and Jason, along with two other GAHA members Pui Shan and Evelyn, went for this event.There were displays of booths from various countries at the tentage area at the *SCAPE Youth Centre. The CAN! Discover celebrates friendship across cultures for the Singapore 2010 Olympic Games. All the different stalls were decorated by representatives from America, Belgium, Brazil, Finland, India, Korea, Mongolia & Switzerland. A booth that was memorable is actually done up by a local primary school, where it highlights the importance of 3Rs: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle on top of the YOG2010 Theme. Besides giving out free drinks during the event, the organisers made the effort to announce that recycling bins are found around the tentage area for disposal of the aluminum cans.
While touring round the booths, we were issued a CAN! passport, which acts as a little notebook to get a sticker for participating in the activities at the different cultural booths. Pui Shan tried her hands at the Switzerland booths, where she had to balance a coin rolling around the round bowl, a traditional game of the Swiss. Aside from games, we were also treated to nice food such as melted cheese over carrots and cucumber, local snacks of the different countries.
There were also paintings for *SCAPE VisOut, an initiative by High Five Youths. They began by taking paints and buckets of water from the counter for anyone that wanted to use their passion to draw on the plastic board, as their unique art piece. Exhibition and paintings is valid every weekend from 18 April to 7 June.
Loud music came from a stage nearby, entertainment provided by local band - EIC. They played guitar and drums, rocking the crowd of young audiences to a high energy level. Performances were followed with Zingo, a troupe of young drummers and TiGaia World Music, playing music from Gambus- a traditional Middle-Eastern instrument together with the Indian Flute.
The Guest-of-Honour was Zainudin Nordin, Mayor of Central Singapore District, Member of Parliament for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC and Chairman of Community Outreach Advisory Committee for Singapore 2010 YOG. He launched the Singapore 2010 CAN! Festivals flag-off for W.A.D!’s Next Race and toured the cultural booths while chatting with the youths manning the booths.
The W.A.D. club encourages youths below the age of 18 to participate in the adventure race around the city area. There were 51 teams of youth altogether. They had to race around the island, finding and learning themes relating to the different cultures of Singapore.
Well, this was the end of the CAN! Festival. Or rather, this marked the beginning of four themed festivals (held every quarter) to get the youths pumped up all the way ‘till the Games in August 2010. Do keep a lookout for these quarterly themed festivals!
First of all, a warm welcome to Vintage 2008 of the GAHA Family! We hope all of you had a wonderful time at the Orientation on 27 Sep 08 and the Ceremony on 3 Oct 08. Also a big thank you once again to the members who volunteered their time to help out at the Orientation and Ceremony.
There is no shortage of activities, which await those of you who are ready to Serve Beyond Gold. Some examples are listed below, together with the contact information of the GAHA Exco you can write to if you would like to find out more or to help out.
So if you’re interested, feel free to drop any of us an email to find out more. In your emails, it would be useful also if you stated your background and any specific areas you feel you would be able to contribute in (e.g. if you are a physiotherapist and would like to do sessions for the elderly; if you have access to dragonboating facilities and you think it would be good for a social activity, etc.)
Please cc info[ at ] nyaagaha.org (if not already in the main email) in any emails to us so that we can better keep track of your correspondences.
As some of the activities may be a few months or more than a year away, please bear with us if we do not respond immediately with the details. Nevertheless, you can expect a friendly email acknowledging receipt from us.
Following the success of the first orientation held last year, the second Gold Award Orientation was recently held at ITE Simei on the 27th September 2008.
The day kicked off with the screening of a GAHA video to more than 100 youths from the latest cohord of Gold Award recipients.
James Soh, the Executive Director of NYAA shared with the youths how the GAHA has contributed significantly to numerous projects and acitivities both locally and internationally and have touched the lives of a diverse group of needy people, young and old. And for each event, GAHA members have came forward to lead, to serve and contribute in diverse ways. Many youths found the presentation engaging and inspiring.
Terrence Chia, the Chairman of GAHA highlighted the objectives, the mission of GAHA and take GAHA as a platform to continue serving beyond Gold. In his presentation, he also introduced the GAHA Exco with special mentions to their involvement.
As soon as the presentation were concluded, the youths broke up into smaller groups with their respective facilitators and after spending some time interacting, the groups were tasked to put their ideas and creativity together to construct their team newspaper tower. Many interesting structures were presented with ideas drawn from Eiffel Tower, The Leaning Tower of Pisa and tripod stand (re-engineered with 4 legs instead of 3). As high as the ceiling goes, Group 10 was the winning team after gaining the judges’ unanimous vote.
The afternoon ended with a group debrief and contacts were exchanged. Through this orientation, GAHA members - new and existing have came to know one another better and forge closer working relationship going forward.
