Singapore’s sovereign fund just wants teens to give back to society Somebody at GIC had a brilliant idea to get Singaporeans to give back to society — train undergrads to mentor underprivileged children while offering a cash grant incentive of $3,000 to $5,000. Source The company behind Singapore’s sovereign fund even got their PR team to write a passionate copy about how GIC smartly invests the nation’s monies, so investing the people of Singapore is a logical step. Unfortunately, The Straits Times chose to paraphrase the mentorship and counselling programme — named GIC Sparks & Smiles — to “volunteering”. Source A definition which, perhaps inevitably, led Singaporeans to ponder the true meaning of volunteerism in the comments section. And such related pitchforks are absolutely right — being paid for volunteering goes against the altruistic origins of the act, as clearly defined by a helpful Facebook user. Well, except the word volunteer appears nowhere in GIC’s page of CSR programmes. Grant is only for students from households which earn below $2,000 per capita Further, universities which support the grant are quick to emphasise that only students with a monthly household per capita of below $2,000 are eligible. Just take a look at the pages of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Management […]

8 years ago