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.
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”.
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.
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 University, Singapore Institute of Technology, and Singapore University of Technology and Design.
This grant is doing great things — it accepts only students whose households earn way below Singapore’s median wage, equips them with counselling skills, and gets them to befriend and affect the lives of disadvantaged youth.
Instead, this well-meaning scheme has been badly misunderstood and wrongly chastised.
This isn’t an initiative to get students to earn a quick buck, but is a grant to reward those who take time out of their schedules to pick up otherwise difficult-to-learn skills and apply them for the greater good.
Just like how this Reddit user succinctly sums it up.
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With reference from GIC
Featured Image via YouTube
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