Impact Report 2018

Impact Report 2018

3

Welcome

4

Give Back to Tanglin

7

Introducing the TTS Foundation

8

TTS Foundation Internship Programme

11

Volunteer

14

Alumni Events

15

Deirdre Lew Service Award

16

Alumni Grants

17

Appreciation

18

Appendix: Deirdre Lew Service Award & Alumni Grant Trip Reports

Table of Contents

Welcome

Craig Considine / Chief Executive Officer Pablo Picasso once said that the meaning of life is to find your gift, while the purpose of life is to give it away. We know that a Tanglin Trust School education equips students with the empathy and social understanding to recognise the importance of giving to others. Students undertake many service based activities while they are at school and also contribute to the greater good of the school community. But making choices when one leaves school can often be difficult. The TTS Foundation helps bridge the gap between school and the real world, between taking and giving, between childhood and adulthood. The 2017/18 Impact Report identifies how Tanglin Trust Alumni have developed and distributed their gifts. Long may it continue.

Kind regards Craig

Nellie Rogers / Alumni Manager Tanglin holds a special place in all our hearts, whether you attended Tanglin for just one year or for the entire 15 years, or whether you taught here. Life gives us brief moments with one another, but sometimes in those brief moments, we create memories that last a lifetime. It is this special connection with the school and with each other that sparks our Alumni to make an impact in the lives of our students after leaving Tanglin.

This publication celebrates all the times over the past year when we have reconnected at events and when Alumni shared their expertise at Tanglin enriching our curriculum and our students’ lives. It also showcases the incredible opportunities that are open to you as Tanglin Alumni and outlines ways you can get involved. Take a minute to click through to some of the Deirdre Lew Service Awards and Alumni Grant linked articles on page 18. These amazing projects, funded by TTS Foundation, have hopefully inspired fellow Alumni as well as current students to seize these opportunities to expand their horizons and give back to our wider community. A big thank you to all Alumni who supported Tanglin Trust School over the last year!

Best wishes Nellie

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Give Back to Tanglin

To share your expertise, click here

Shiv-Rani Mistry (2015) In August 2017, Shiv-Rani candidly shared her amazing experience of her product design engineering course at Loughborough University with our Year 12 & 13 scientists.

Oscar Settle (2016) In December 2017, Oscar visited Tanglin to support our National Service Talk. He provided our current students with invaluable information and advice on preparing for National Service and gave real insight into life as a soldier in the Singapore Armed Forces.

Kaushik Srinivasan (2017) In January 2018, Kaushik shared his US University experience with our Year 12 students. Kaushik is a freshman at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Hilary Frances Samuels (2012) Hilary visited Tanglin in March 2018 where she observed an IB History lesson and shared her insights about reading History at Cambridge with some of our students.

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Give Back to Tanglin

Click here to volunteer for the 2018 Uni Forum on 12 December

Oscar Henderson (2019) We were very fortunate to welcome back Oscar along with the Scots Albury Pipe Band from Australia to perform to our Year 1 and Year 4 students. They were in Singapore to compete at the South East Asia Pipe Band Championships!

Nathan Stone (2016), Clarissa Dharmaseta (2014), Aneliese Forday (2016), Izzy Forday (2014), Sam Hinge (2015), Rishav Das (2015), Ayushi Chandaria (2016) & Emma Tupper-Carey (2017) A very big thank you to our Alumni who each shared their life@university experiences with our Year 12 & 13 students in December 2017.

Matthew Seah (2006), Francesca McKee (2006), Olivia Allaway (2007), Merandel Sitepu (2010) & Zoe McParlin (2011) The Degree Options and Careers Possibilities Fair in January 2018 allowed students in Year 13 to seek advice from Alumni and parents.

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Visit Tanglin

Click here to arrange a visit!

A selection of our Alumni Visitors in 2017/18

Click here to check out our online community for more visitor photos!

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Introducing the TTS Foundation Find out about last year's funded projects at TTS which were aimed at students, staff and parents in the 2017/18 Report of Giving.

The TTS Foundation was established in 2012 to enable exceptional opportunities for our community, including our Alumni. Funded programmes aimed at our Alumni include the Alumni Grant, the Deirdre Lew Service Award and the TTS Foundation Internship Programme.

I was thrilled to read the Appendix to this Impact Report which includes articles written by Alumni about projects that they have taken part in with funding from the TTS Foundation.

The breadth of their experiences over a number of continents is impressive as well as the range of opportunities they have fulfilled – whether it be supporting a touch team in Brisbane, attending an Ethical Hacking Conference in Ireland, or closer to Tanglin’s home, taking part in a conservation project in Tengah Island, Malaysia. Do take time to have a read and perhaps be inspired to apply for a grant to pursue one of your own life goals.

Details of how to apply are on pages 15 & 16.

Cecilia Handel / Director of Development

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2018 Internship Programme

"My internship has been so much more than I ever expected; from helping out in the Chemistry department and reviewing Extended Essays, to meeting amazing students along the way it has been an absolute pleasure."

Reynard Conradie (2018) Chemistry Intern

Following last year's highly successful Internship Programme in the Senior School, this year saw an expanded programme across all three schools. Our Infant and Junior students were thrilled! The objectives of the programme are to provide positive role models for our students, create meaningful opportunities for Alumni to stay connected with Tanglin and to support our students' transition post-graduation from Tanglin.

In August and September we welcomed 22 Alumni as TTS Foundation Interns and two students from Oxford University. They were involved in supporting students in lessons, CCAs and workshops related to their area of study. Not only have they given our students inspiration, they have helped them with their personal statements, answered questions on life at university and given various presentations.

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2018 Internship Programme

"Lydia helped us in some of our art classes. She was so much fun and taught us to draw crazy faces."

Bea Wiles (Year 6)

Madeleine Bui - Geography Intern (2013) "This internship has offered me the invaluable opportunity of experiencing the classroom from a teacher’s perspective and provided me with some insight as to what pursuing a career in teaching would involve. I’ve interacted with students from across the Senior School, mainly in Geography classes but also in Mandarin and Art. Having spoken to several Sixth Form students who are currently in the process of applying for university, I hope I’ve been able to reassure them that studying away from home isn’t as scary as it seems and that they’ve got a world of opportunities out there. Additionally, I’ve tried to emphasise to students that the topics they study at school only cover a small fraction of what the discipline encompasses, which I hope will encourage them to explore the subjects outside of the classroom setting."

Dillon Lim - Biology Intern (2018) "The internship has given me the opportunity to work with students throughout the school. I've also tested new practicals for the department and read science personal statements and Extended Essays. The opportunity to advise and hopefully inspire some of the older students about the subject and the IB was something I really enjoyed. Overall, helping in lessons (and even teaching some!) has reaffirmed my desire to one day go into education."

"I thought it was a lovely experience and a great way to properly say goodbye to the school as well as to give back to the department that helped me the most throughout my time at Tanglin."

"Harry has been willing to undertake any task and willing to impart his knowledge and experiences with all of our students, whether it be about Economics, personal statements or just general advice. He has led classes and been proactive and productive in all that he has done and I’m sure he has enjoyed getting to see Tanglin from another perspective."

Taylor Thomson (2018) PE Intern

Mhairi Aluthge-Donna Head of Economics & Business

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2018 Internship Programme

Register your interest here for our 2019 Internship Programme.

We will email you in February 2019 when applications open!

Aswin Vivekanandan - Computer Science Intern (2017) "Working as an intern at Tanglin has given me an insight to teaching. I have enjoyed supporting classes in Computer Science, providing extra support for students who may not have a firm grasp of the topics involved while also creating resources to challenge them. Along with two other interns, I gave a talk to Sixth Form students who are thinking about studying in London about what life is like there. Overall, I hope to have inspired the students to challenge themselves and to have generated interest in Computer Science and the other STEM subjects."

Lydia Haines - Junior School Art Intern (2014) Lydia studied at Tanglin for seven years and has recently graduated with a First Class Fine Art degree from the University of Leeds. "I think it’s a lovely way to end my University journey going back to where I began - at Tanglin. As well as assisting the Junior Art Department with the Year 3 - Year 6 classes Mr Hinckley runs, I was given the opportunity to teach Year 4 ‘Picasso’. Presenting, leading discussions and managing painterly drawing activities was an enjoyable experience, opening their eyes into the world of ‘Cubism’ and ‘Abstraction’. The sheer tenacity of young Tanglin students sometimes makes them afraid to make mistakes in art class. They aspire to create a perfection that doesn’t always exist in the subject. My objective has been to prompt a confidence, embracing the mistakes made as I think the best artworks come from happy accidents. There are ‘no right or wrong answers’ and I hope I’ve inspired the students to ‘let go’ when creating. I’ve also had the opportunity to work with the CEO, designing personalised cards to promote the arts in the school."

Quote from Snr student

Nathan Phillips - History & Politics Intern (2014) “Having the opportunity to lead some lessons and support in others has been an entirely new challenge for me, and one that I’m really buzzing off. Teaching is a career-path I’m considering in the future, and it’s been an incredible experience to be able to come back to Tanglin to try and support students, in the school that did so much for me – and continues to do so. The staff have been incredibly welcoming and are actively trying to help me develop skills in the area of teaching, and the students are a credit to the school.”

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Volunteer Your time & expertise

Organise a Tanglin Gathering!

Enable the expansion of our community by connecting with more Alumni and Friends of Tanglin. Target cities are: Sydney, Melbourne, New York, LA, San Francisco, European capital cities, Exeter, Durham, Oxford and Cambridge.

The Alumni team will support the promotion of your get-together and you will receive an event pack to get you started!

For more information, please email alumni@tts.edu.sg

Life@University Panelist Volunteer your time as a panel member for our 'Life@University' event on 12 December 2018 at Tanglin. Ideally we are looking for four to six Alumni who represent a range of universities, a variety of courses and are studying in different countries. Our panel volunteers will be allocated a named reserved seat at the Christmas panto on 14 December 2018.

Click here to organise an event!

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Volunteer Your time & expertise

Click here to Offer a Work Experience Placement

Work Experience Help prepare our students for the world beyond Tanglin by offering a work experience place.

Our Work Experience programme is now in its 10th year. In 2018, all students had the opportunity to experience a one week work shadow, up from three days in 2017. This was overwhelmingly well received by both employers and students. Moving forward, all Year 10 students will benefit from a one week work shadow. Finding places for all 192 students is challenging, hence we reach out to our entire community.

Please take a look at this short film featuring some of last year's employers and students and hopefully it will persuade you to get on board and take part in this careers initiative!

Our Alumni Camilla Hewitson, Regional Managing Director at Affordable Art Fair, kindly provided a work experience place in 2017 thank you!

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Volunteer Your time & expertise

University Perspective Submit an Alumni University Perspective to help our Sixth Form with their university choices. This is an online submission which will take approximately 15-20 minutes to complete. They are a great source of information for our current students when choosing which university they might want to apply for. Currently we have over 50 perspectives - to view the collection, please click here.

"Completing a university perspective not only allowed me to reflect on my transition to university, but allowed potential applicants an insight into life at my institution in an honest and balanced manner."

Chris Jones (2017)

You can submit your University Perspective HERE 13

Alumni Events

Alumni Event 4 October 2018 Singapore Alumni Event 18 November 2017 London

Alumni BBQ 31 August 2018 Tanglin Trust School

Register for our next Alumni Event in London on 10 November 2018 Click here to register!

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Deirdre Lew Service Award

Apply for a Deirdre Lew Service Award to learn more about the world you live in. Make a positive contribution and exercise responsible citizenship. To support our young Alumni in their service endeavours, the TTS Foundation funds Deirdre Lew Service Awards (max. SGD500) up to one term after graduation from Tanglin. Applications from the 2018 cohort are due by 9 November 2018.

"The Deirdre Lew Service Award is something worth encouraging others to take part in. Having had such a gratifying experience it is easy to say that as individuals we have obtained a more compassionate heart for the elderly as well as the amazing people who work to care for them and on the whole are compelled to go into the rest of our lives continuing to care for those at a disadvantage".

“Relief actions would not be possible without volunteers. We discovered we had the ability to communicate with people from many countries, both refugees and volunteers and realized the importance of being responsible, respectful and open. We felt that we got more than we gave.�

Kostas Papaspyridis (2019) John Papaspyridis (2021)

Hospice Kang Le, Marselling - Pragya Chalisgaonkar, Zanzibar Robinson & Yasmin Foster (2020)

Click here to apply 15

Alumni Grant Click

here

to apply

Apply for an Alumni Grant (capped at SGD1000 per person) to learn or improve a skill or to complete a service activity. If you are planning an activity please submit a clear proposal including details of how your trip / activity helps achieve educational benefits and learning outcomes linked to the Tanglin Learner Profile. You can apply individually or as a group of up to four Alumni. Upon completion of your activity the expectation is that you will share what you have learnt with our current students and hopefully inspire them in turn to push themselves out of their comfort zones!

"Having had that time doing something I love and gaining more diving qualifications, has been the experience of a lifetime. Hopefully one day I’ll be a police recovery diver! I would highly recommend any Tanglin Alumni to apply for the grant and improve any skills or learn about something that they’re passionate "I learnt a lot during my stay in about."

Namibia, from learning how cold it gets at night, the names of animals Zoe Sykes (2014) I had never heard of, to how to carry out and record a game count.

I also learnt a great deal about conservation."

Theo Atkinson (2017)

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Appreciation To all those people who "gave back" to Tanglin Omar Alami Olivia Allaway Oscar Allison-Dogar Theo Atkinson Clarissa Azaria Sean Barker Dana Beretta Charlotte Britten Sophie Brown Madeleine Bui Pragya Chalisgaonkar Ayushi Chandaria Ashleigh Chow Kamin Clarke Martha Claxton Reynard Conradie Ben Cooper Hannah Coughlan Emily Crowe Aboli Datey Caroline Daumich Anthea Demetriou Clarissa Dharmaseta Katy Downs Callum Dunne Oliver Eisenberg Hayley Firth Aneliese Forday Izzy Forday Yasmin Foster Alice Garnier Adi Ginat Matthew Gledhill Alison Greene-Kelly Phil Griggs Lydia Haines Benjamin Hall Keval Haria

Natalie Harris Nathan Harris Rebecca Harrow Jaz Heber-Percy Oscar Henderson Camilla Hewitson Sam Hinge Marcus Ho Saskia Hodges Jacob Howes Hamna Irfan Katie Jelpke Chris Jones Zarghona Khan Matt Kubal Hana Kumar Jessica Lamb Nick Lang Holly Leadbitter Isabel Lee Dillon Lim Lily Liu Benjamin Luscombe Kate Mahon (Williams) Oliver Mando Sophia McCall Francesca McKee Zoe McParlin Tara Menon Shiv-Rani Mistry Tommy Morgan Jessica Newman Sean Nolan Amritha Omprakash John Papaspyridis Kostas Papaspyridis Eashan Patel Nathan Phillips

Matthew Phillips Harry Quant Alex Rathband Oliver Reeves Megan Rennie Zanzibar Robinson Sarina Salamon Hilary Frances Samuels Dominique Schell Matthew Seah Oscar Settle Amelie Siew Merandel Sitepu Kaushik Srinivasan Thomas Staples Olivia Stevens Nathan Stone Amber Sykes Zoe Sykes Jordan Tan YuXin Tang Sophie ter Kuile Laura Thompson Mike Thornton Jamie Thuillier Megan Togher Emma Tupper-Carey Aditi Udayabhaskar Madeline Veale Francesca Vincenzi Aswin Vivekanandan Riya Wadera Madeleine Vis Helen Waghorne Megan Williams Lucas Wood-Olivan Daphne Yap Michaela Young

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Appendix

Deirdre Lew Service Award Trip Reports Village Care and Community Development, Laos (Omar Alami, Marcus Ho, Benjamin Luscombe - 2019 Cohort) Elephant Nature Park, Thailand (Meghan Togher - 2019 Cohort) Hospice Kang Le, Singapore (Pragya Chalisgaonkar, Zanzibar Robinson, Yasmin Foster - 2020 Cohort) Batam Build, Indonesia (Amelie Siew, Amritha Omprakash, Hamna Irfan, Zarghona Khan, Kae-Rene Boey, Jordan Tan, Rebecca Harrow & Riya Wadera - 2020 Cohort) Hygiene Kits for Transient Workers, Singapore (Aboli Datey, Lily Liu & Alison Greene-Kelly - 2019 Cohort) Children @ Risk House Building, Cambodia (Hannah Coughlan, Alex Rathband & Jessica Lamb - 2019 Cohort) Caritas Charity, Greece (John Papaspyridis - 2021 Cohort & Kostas Papaspyridis 2019 Cohort) Kenya Service Outreach, Kenya (Daphne Yap & Tara Menon - 2019 Cohort)

Alumni Grant Trip Reports Stanford University's MedX Conference, USA (Dominique Schell - 2014 Cohort) Carnivore Conservation and Research, Namibia (Theo Atkinson - 2017 Cohort) ZeroDays 'CTF' Ethical Hacking Competition, Ireland (Sophia McCall - 2016 Cohort) Skiing, France (Katie Jelpke - 2014 Cohort) Discovering Europe (Kayleigh Mands - 2015 Cohort) Chemical Engineering Collaboration, Korea (Matthew Kubal - 2014 Cohort) Brisbane Touch Rugby Trip, Australia (Emily Crowe - 2014 Cohort) Ski Instructor Course, Canada (Matthew Gledhill - 2017 Cohort) Divemaster Internship, Canary Islands (Zoe Sykes - 2014 Cohort) California Adventure, USA (Ayushi Chandaria - 2016 Cohort & Francesca Vincenzi - 2017 Cohort) Travelling & Studying, Israel (Adi Ginat - 2017 Cohort) Tengah Island Conservation, Malaysia (Helen Waghorne - 2016 Cohort) Language Exchange, France (Ashleigh Chow - 2017 Cohort)

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Deirdre Lew Service Award 2017-18

Laos Village Care and Community Development Omar Alami, Marcus Ho, Benjamin Luscombe

Omar Alami, Ben Luscombe and Marcus Ho (2019 cohorts) received a Deirdre Lew Service Award funded by the TTS Foundation for Laos Village Care and Community Development because they wanted to give back to the wider community and saw a lack of support in Laos for teaching and education. Their preparation included creating, printing and laminating revision notes in English which the children could keep and use throughout their education.

They also took old clothes and toiletries for them.

On 28th March 2018, we embarked on our trip to Ban Houakhou, Laos! We flew via Bangkok to Wattay International Airport in Vientiane. By the time we had arrived, it was around 9pm and we were greeted by Ticky, a member of staff from The Green Lion which was the local organisation we were working with. We took a Tuk-Tuk 40km out of Vientiane to Ban Houakhou to where our guesthouse was. We were greeted by the other volunteers from countries such as Hong Kong and Finland. The following morning we had breakfast followed by a briefing by Micky who is Ticky’s brother! He gave us more insight into the history and culture of Laos and set us on our way to the community where we would be teaching children, playing games, singing songs, supporting staff and helping with cooking as well as many other activities.

Afterwards, we then went to our afternoon class who were very friendly and we organised maths bingo for them as a nice break to the end of the week and so they can get a better understanding of addition in English. The afternoon work was completed around 4pm and after that we would have the rest of the evening to do as we pleased. Dinner was usually followed by a game of badminton as well as the occasional Karaoke and barbeque night. We were then invited by other volunteers to go to Vang Vieng, a mountainous place which is popular with tourists, to explore more of its landscape and culture. To explore this place we decided to rent out buggies where we rode around the city and took it off-road into the mountains. This was great fun and we managed to take some beautiful pictures of the landscape.

After our weekend break we went back to volunteering at Green Lion. However, this time we took on more responsibilities such as leading some of the activities. We struggled in the beginning as the children were full of energy and would lose concentration very quickly. However the advice from our supervisor and other volunteers such as by starting the lesson with “head shoulders knees and toes” to contain their energy, helped us hugely.

Overall, it was an amazing experience and one which we would definitely repeat. We felt like we gave back to a community and genuinely helped people. It gave us many skills such as resilience, patience and learning to be more organised. It was a big change for us to go on a trip where everything depended on us. This is definitely a trip we would do again and we recommend to everyone hoping to go on a trip like this to make sure they have a clear idea of what is involved and to focus on making sure that everything is organised before you go.

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Deirdre Lew Service Award 2017-18

Elephant Nature park Meghan Togher

Meghan Togher (2019 cohort) received a Deirdre Lew Service Award funded by the TTS Foundation to visit the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai. She decided to do this because of her outstanding conservation efforts during the Journey to Freedom project. The Elephant Nature Park is an elephant rescue and rehabilitation centre in Northern Thailand founded by a local Thai woman named Lek. So far, the she has saved over 2,000 animals including elephants, cats, dogs, pigs, buffaloes and many other exotic species from cruel environments. There are further plans to expand the park’s efforts to Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Laos and other Southeast Asian countries.

The Journey to Freedom project is a unique project which features daily elephant interactions, learning about agriculture and the local Karen community, developing local school children learning experiences and living in a cultural exchange at a tribal village in the mountains of Chiang Mai. My YouTube video of my trip: https://youtu.be/kZ35r7nPGSQ My time at the elephant sanctuary was spectacular to say the least. Not only was I able to see and interact with elephants in their natural habitat, but I also had the opportunity to learn about a local tribe and live in a completely different environment. The kampong house I stayed in for the week had little electricity, little running water and no Wi-Fi. In addition to this, all the food was vegetarian. Despite the fact that the kitchen had little more than a coal fire, delicious homemade dishes were served to us at all times of the day. Rather than throwing away leftovers, there was a huge emphasis on ‘if you couldn’t finish it’, give it back to nature by throwing it in the bushes where it could decay.

Every day I took part in a different activity, such as feeding and observing elephants in the forest, playing with school children at the local kindergarten, helping local farmers build water tanks and visiting a local village. On the last day I stayed at the Elephant Nature Park main campus, where I was able to observe the many lives that have been changed for the better. The whole week I lived alongside 12 other volunteers.

They started out as strangers, but very soon became people I will always hold dear to my heart. We shared life changing experiences even crying together when we learnt the realities of the elephant trade.

Not only was the trip phenomenal, but I also believe it has changed me as a person. I realized how privileged I am to have such a luxurious lifestyle. However, I also learnt that people who seemingly have ‘nothing’ are sometimes happier that way, because they make do with what they have. The biggest, most obvious learning outcome from the trip was the elephant lifestyle in Thailand.

Elephant abuse is a huge problem in Thailand’s tourist trade. Elephants are used for logging, trekking, elephant back riding and circus entertainment. Behind the scenes of such activities, elephants are stolen from their mothers at a young age, brutally beaten, tamed with sharp objects and often worked to death.

The biggest challenge for me was when I saw the shocking injuries and mental trauma the elephants have due to abuse, landmines and accidents.

However, after meeting the owner and creator of the park - a lady named Lek - I was inspired by her work ethic, passion and drive for what she believes in. Not only does she manage to save many animals, but her knowledge of the ‘bigger picture’ amazed me. So far she has rescued over 80 elephants, 350 cats, 600 dogs, monkeys, buffaloes, birds and many other animals that are impacted by humans in Thailand. On top of this, she has improved the education of local Thai people, offered job opportunities to the unemployed, saved trees that would otherwise be destroyed by construction sites, and she has adopted 14 refugee children!

I would recommend any of the Elephant Nature Park projects to anyone. Especially those with a passion in conservation, animal wellbeing or someone who wants to do something better for a good cause. The experience you will have is unforgettable, the people you will meet are awe-inspiring and the food you will taste is truly delicious!

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Deirdre Lew Service Award 2017-18

Hospice Kang Le, Marselling Pragya Chalisgaonkar, Zanzibar Robinson & Yasmin Foster

Pragya Chalisgaonkar, Zanzibar Robinson and Yasmin Foster (2020 cohorts) received a Deirdre Lew Service Award funded by the TTS Foundation to help at the Kang Le Hospice, located in Woodlands (Singapore). The Kang Le Hospice is an organisation specialising in palliative care which means they focus on providing comfort to terminally ill patients rather than curing them. Through the exposure to such a broad cross-section of Singaporeans, we were able to form unique relationships with those we otherwise would have never interacted with. In addition, the experience allowed us to explore physiotherapy and nursing as were surrounded by people in those fields. We chose this particular field to apply for an award because of the good relationships we have with our grandparents.

Helping the elderly was close to our hearts and also because we saw a lack of awareness and enthusiasm from youth in caring for the older generation that we wished to accommodate.

After the application process was finalized, we organised all the supplies that we would need. From 18th to 20th December, we spent 6 hours working in the hospice. We began at 10am in the morning by helping transport the patients inside the hospice in their wheelchairs. Then we served them breakfast and followed by lunch and helped wash the dishes. Something all of us found to be very interesting was talking to them and listening to them share their stories and experiences from all different walks of life. We also assisted with Tai-chi and yoga lessons before leading our arts and crafts sessions, which we chose as our activity because we thought this would be simple to explain and demonstrate and so help overcome the language barrier since many of the patients spoke only

Chinese or Bahasa. When painting the boxes and banners to decorate the hospice the group seemed to really enjoy the activity, finding it relaxing and therapeutic. Also, some of them were very artistically talented and even those who weren’t seemed to appreciate to express themselves creatively and take a break from routine. Spending time with the elderly at Kang Le and seeing how even with a year or so left to live still active and making the most out of their days was very inspiring and grounding. It reminded us not to take for granted the little things that we can do like eat any food we like or do sports.

Overall, for all of us our time spent at the hospice was something we gained lots from and we are grateful for the chance to have made a positive difference, no matter how small, in the world and feel that the Deirdre Lew Service Award is something worth encouraging others to take part in. Having had such a gratifying experience it is easy to say that as individuals we have obtained a more compassionate heart for the elderly as well as the amazing people who work to care for them and on the whole are compelled to go into the rest of our lives continuing to care for those at a disadvantage.

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Deirdre Lew Service Award 2017-18

Batam Build, Indonesia Amelie Siew, Amritha Omprakash, Hamna Irfan, Zarghona Khan, Kae-Rene Boey, Jordan Tan, Rebecca Harrow & Riya Wadera

Amelie Siew, Amritha Omprakash, Hamna Irfan, Jordan Tan, Rebecca Harrow, Riya Wadera, Zarghona Khan, Kae-Rene Boey (2020 Cohorts) received a Deirdre Lew Service Award funded by the TTS Foundation because they wanted to step out of their comfort zones and make a difference in a community far from their own. They worked with the organisation ‘Habitat For Humanity’ who guided and helped plan the trip.

Before going to the Batam build in Indonesia, the group volunteered to help improve the safety and sanitation of a homeowner in Singapore itself. He was ready to move back after several months in an old people’s home.

The trip was chosen because the group wanted to give back to the community. They took up the challenge of helping with the building of a new home for a family in need of one. The group did not have any previous experience in the field of construction but through this project, they learnt the basics of building a home.

Click to view the video We thoroughly enjoyed this trip and found it to be a very fulfilling experience. Not only did we manage to help with basic construction work which included cement mixing, bricklaying and beam tying, we also got to meet some children from the town who were nearby and eat local food.

The children were very friendly, even though we couldn’t communicate in the same language. One of the members of our team used her Malay knowledge and adapted it to Indonesian as best as she could. The children were very enthusiastic and lively, which made us work harder in rebuilding their community.

The meals we had were locally made and normally consisted of seafood – it was delicious. Trying these made us feel like we were part of their community.

We stayed in a hotel for one night which was a few hours’ drive from the work site. The bus journey to and from the build site was beautiful. After a tiring day of work, we would return to the hotel with cement on our clothes, have aching fingers and backs, but the smiles on our faces were unquestionable.

By the end of the trip, we felt highly rewarded and left wanting to further give back to our community in the future; whether that be locally or elsewhere. Even though our trip was rather short, and we couldn’t build the entire house, merely lending a hand in the process made us feel like we had left our mark and participated in something very meaningful - turning a house into a home, for those who deserve it.

We would highly recommend this trip because it made us feel like we made a difference for the community, even though it was a short trip. Not only did we learn about construction, but we also developed our team working and communication skills to be as efficient and helpful as possible.

Another key aspect which enhanced the experience was that we were able to meet the homeowners and the people who lived in the area. This gave a more personal touch to the trip as we could meet who we were helping. We would definitely work with Habitat for Humanity again, whether it be in Singapore where we cleaned a flat, or abroad where many house building projects are underway. The whole experience was rewarding and fulfilling, we would recommend the trip to anyone who wants to make a difference.

Moreover, the Batam trip and cleaning the small flat made us feel more independent and humbler about the things we take for granted. We had to organise and arrange travel documents and communicate details and procedures with the organization, our school and our teammates. This not only made us feel part of the process but also taught us a great deal about the real world. It also taught us to be grateful of all the things we’re blessed with and to go out of our way to help someone, even if it only makes a small difference.

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Deirdre Lew Service Award 2017-18

Hygiene Kits for Transient Workers Aboli Datey, Lily Liu and Alison Greene-Kelly

Aboli Datey, Lily Liu and Alison Greene-Kelly received a Deirdre Lew Service Award funded by the TTS Foundation for providing transient workers with hygiene kits. They distributed the packs at the Cuff Road Food Programme which provides meals for workers who are in dispute with their employers or are injured and their employers refuse to pay the medical bills. These workers are often destitute and unable to feed themselves.

We are thankful to the TTS foundation for aiding us to run this project for the second year in a row, and the large number of people who donated items. While there are more than a million migrant workers living in Singapore away from their families, we chose to focus our help to transient workers.

Transient workers are migrant workers who are stuck in Singapore without incomes as they are unable to work because of injuries or legal issues, making them destitute. Therefore, we volunteered with TWC2 (Transient Workers Count Too), to provide them these kits. Each hygiene kit included a toothbrush, toothpaste and a bar of soap, wrapped in a towel, to avoid wasting excess plastic. This

was one of the biggest improvements in our project from last time as we saved a hundred and seventy plastic bags from being used and discarded.

We put up notices in the bulletin and e-flyer and made announcements in the assembly to inform everyone about the collection. Not only did we collect donated items from members of the Tanglin community, but we also collected donations by distributing cookies. We were able to turn $30 spent on ingredients for cookies into $180 as donations, which was more than enough to provide every worker with a kit. We also had twenty-seven extra kits which we left at the site for any new members.

Overall, we found this experience incredibly rewarding. It was a very fulfilling experience not only because we got to help a hundred and seventy people, but also because we improved our organisation and communication skills while doing so. We learnt that even a simple project, when planned well can make a significant impact. Applying for this award made it much easier for us to support a worthwhile cause.

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Deirdre Lew Service Award 2017-18

Children @ Risk Housebuilding, Cambodia Hannah Coughlan, Alex Rathband, Jess Lamb

Hannah, Alex and Jess (2019 cohort) received a Deirdre Lew Service Award funded by the TTS Foundation to build a house for a family in need. To do this, we needed to raise $4,200 ourselves, to pay for the building materials. To do this, we organised a 300km run between the three of us.

Friends and family sponsored us to raise these necessary funds. This was a worthwhile experience because we were building for a family who had four kids and a blind woman.

Click here to read their blog Travelling to Cambodia was an exceptional experience for us. We took the initiative and contacted the charity ‘Children at Risk’ and organized the whole trip ourselves. We chose to do a housebuilding project with the aim of building a house for a family in need. The family we were building for included a blind woman, which made us more determined to finish the house to the best of our ability so her and her other family members could live as safely and happily as possible. Upon arriving in Cambodia, we were greeted warmly by the founder of the charity. We had a long drive down to Kampong Cham, the province in which we were planning to build in. For the week we lived local style in a house on stilts and sleeping on basic mattresses with mosquito nets. The generous family that we were staying

with cooked traditional food each day for us which made us feel more culturally immersed. Our living conditions gave us insight into how local Cambodian families live. It was much more simply than us and made us appreciate how differently we live in Singapore. Each day we started building at 8am and worked hard for 6 hours each day. This included the sanding and painting all of the wood and moving them to the necessary places. The people in the province that we built in were all very kind hearted.

All the local children and men in the area who didn’t speak English, came and helped us out of their own free will. We were truly grateful for this and thanked them profusely at the end. On the last day, we ran a children’s club with the locals, playing basic games with them and handed out clothes, stationary and sweets, all of which made them very excited!

We learnt from this experience that housebuilding involves a lot of hard work and dedication. Working long hours through the day was a necessity in order to finish the house build in the week that we spent there. We would recommend that if one was to do a housebuilding project, you would have to spend longer than a week there! Furthermore, I feel like we gained a sense of independence, being able to organise the whole trip by ourselves from sorting out our accommodation, transport to earning money for the materials.

Overall, our trip to Cambodia taught us many things including remembering to be grateful for the little things that life has to offer, organization and dedication to the job in hand. We wanted to give the best we could for people less fortunate than ourselves. Thank you to the TTS Foundation for helping us fulfil this project.

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Deirdre Lew Service Award 2017-18

Caritas Charity, Athens (Greece) Kostas Papaspyridis & John Papaspyridis

Kostas Papaspyridis (2019 Cohort) and John Papaspyridis (2021 Cohort) received a Deirdre Lew Service Award funded by the TTS Foundation to work as volunteers at Caritas helping immigrant families from Syria and other war-torn countries. We wanted to help prepare the food, deliver clothes and teach them basic language skills in both Greek and English.

Click here to watch their video

Caritas stands for “love” in Latin and the word’s etymology dates back to the ancient Greek word κάρα = head, a common greeting among ancient Greeks, expressing love, affection, admiration or even honour towards a person. The Organization is a branch of Caritas Internationalis, the philanthropic organization of the Catholic Church, which is active in 165 countries across the globe, and based in the centre of Athens. They serve the needs of migrants and refugees principally from Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq and the drought-ridden Horn of Africa, as well as Greek families in need. The staff are limited and assisted by more than 70 part-time volunteers who help on a daily or weekly basis to keep the centre functioning.

While there, we helped with the distribution of meals at the soup kitchen, where refugees, immigrants and very vulnerable Greeks came for a hot meal from Monday to Friday, and we

counted serving more than 450 meals per day. We also helped with the distribution of clothes, shoes and other necessary items (e.g. Bedlinen).

Our daily schedule was 9 am-4 pm. The kitchen was open for food distribution from 11 am to 2 pm. In the morning we prepared food (cut potatoes, carrots, peeled garlic, prepared bread loaves). When the people came in we alternated in all positions, preparing trays, washing dishes, wiping tables, distributing bread loaves to families and whatever was needed in the kitchen and dining area. After the people were gone, we had to clean up, so it would be ready for the next day. At the clothes distribution department, we sorted shoes and clothes from donations by size, gender and style (shirts/trousers etc.). Then, when the area was open for the people, we had to make sure only two items were taken per person, so there would be enough for everybody.

We learned so much from this experience. We realized that so many people from all walks of life are in serious need of basic, daily things, like clothes and food, that most of us take for granted. Also, that this action would not be possible without volunteers. The circumstances were sometimes difficult, especially when watching families with very young children, or homeless people. We were impressed by the kindness of the more experienced, adult volunteers, got to know some of them better, and found out that some had extraordinary lives and experiences. We discovered we had the ability to communicate with people, both refugees and volunteers from many countries. We would like to think we were responsible, trustworthy and respectful in our work.

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Deirdre Lew Service Award 2017-18

Kenya Service Outreach Tara Menon and Daphne Yap

Tara Menon and Daphne Yap (2019 cohort) received a Deirdre Lew Service Award funded by the TTS Foundation for a service trip to Nairobi, Kenya to teach Olympiad maths and music to students at the Starehe Girls Centre. This trip was brought to their attention by a Tanglin Alumni who had previously volunteered at the school. Starehe Girls Centre was a unique opportunity as it is a charity institution educating underprivileged girls from across Kenya. They wanted to enhance the girls’ learning with lessons and activities in subjects that they were passionate about.

To watch their video, click here Tara’s Reflections: Mathematics, and particularly problem solving, has been a great passion of mine since I was young. I love the feeling of being confronted with a problem and having to dissect it using logic and numerical analysis to obtain an elegant solution. However, while volunteering as a maths tutor for young children, I noticed that many of them dislike maths because they don’t understand how to solve such problems. I have always wanted to spread my love of problem solving and encourage proficiency in it as I believe it is not only fun but is also an invaluable life skill. This is why I decided to undertake this trip to teach Olympiad maths at Starehe Girls Centre in Nairobi. Before embarking on the journey, I was apprehensive because the students were my age and I did not know how they would respond to being taught by a peer. However, my fears were assuaged when I met the students and staff; their warm and welcoming manner was incredibly touching, and I looked forward to getting to know and befriending the girls at the school. The day after we arrived, I joined the student guide Perpetual who had been assigned to me. I attended her Physics and Chemistry classes. Since I study these subjects too as part of the IB curriculum, it was interesting to observe and compare the differences in both the teaching and learning styles between their system and ours. In Kenya the education system is more traditional, and rote based with limited student-teacher discussion; starkly contrasting Tanglin’s discussion-based lessons and emphasis on critical thinking. My lessons in Olympiad maths over the next few days, included plenty of interactive activities, class participation and

discussion. At first, the participation was virtually non-existent, but this gradually changed and soon our sessions became quite engaging as the girls immersed themselves enthusiastically into the program which was heartening to see.

My lessons covered a range of Topics from the Olympiad math curriculum from Venn diagrams to number manipulation; some of which the girls were vaguely familiar and others not at all. However, they enthusiastically embraced it with a willingness and hunger which was very heartening. The thirst for knowledge, despite knowing they would not need it for exams, both took me by surprise and inspired me to continue my pursuit of academic interests simply for the love of learning, and not just for exam preparation.

Daphne’s Reflections: As a musician, it’s important to share your work and your craft with others. Going to Kenya and sharing my musical knowledge in performance and theory to girls whom I became fast friends with was a rare and distinguishable experience. Using creative and original thinking, I designed classes to help the girls retain information in both aspects of music in a memorable way. The girls were friendly and eager to learn, which I found compelling. Aside from this, I had the great opportunity to experience the music outside of the classroom. From Founder’s Day rehearsals at Starehe Boys Centre to choir practices to singing traditional Kenyan songs in the cafeteria, I found the music to be integrated into the daily lives of the girls of Starehe.

I can only hope my teaching enhanced their musical abilities and passions as they continue to pursue this art. But most important were the people I met. Everybody I met had something to teach and something to learn. I even got to experience teaching instruments I had never played with the help of a volunteer mentor.

Going to Kenya not only opened my eyes to a contrasting culture but it also made me a better and more well-rounded musician. I highly recommend this trip to all who are interested; it is an opportunity not to be missed.

This trip was an eye-opening experience that allowed us to experience a culture which is very different from our own. As we also joined in on some of the girls’ lessons, we were able to observe the style of teaching and education in the Kenyan system, which starkly contrasts our system in Tanglin. Through our lessons, we were able to expose them to a novel style of teaching and learning. Over the course of the week, we were able to form friendships with the girls, and learned from them as they learned from us.

For future participants in this outreach program, we would highly recommend a longer visit of two weeks, as we felt that one week was not enough time for us to integrate ourselves in their community. In addition, we also recommend visiting the rest of Nairobi to fully experience and appreciate the Kenyan culture.

Overall, we feel that this trip has taught us not only about different cultures and ways of life, but also about appreciating the facilities available to us at Tanglin and the privileges we are blessed with. It was a truly amazing experience that we highly recommend to all future participants.

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Alumni Grant 2016-17

Stanford University’s MedX Conference Dominique Schell

Dominique Schell (2014 cohort) received an Alumni Grant funded by the TTS Foundation to attend and speak at Stanford University’s annual Medicine X Conference. She was invited, along with medical practitioners, researchers and healthcare innovators, to share her experience with childhood cancer. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity for Dominique to raise awareness and to connect with some of the most innovative and engaging minds in the medical field today to promote the development of sarcoma research globally.

Dominique matched her funds by working as an administrative officer at an accountants’ office in Melbourne’s CBD. “This incredible journey began when I registered as a speaker on Medicine X’s website in January 2017. Though I didn’t have much hope of being hand-picked to speak, given the prestige and popularity of the event, I thought I may as well try my luck. So, without telling a soul, I sent in my application along with the link to the TEDx talk I gave at Tanglin back in 2016. And that was that. Within a couple of months, I’d settled back into university life in Melbourne and had completely forgotten about Stanford and MedX. Until, one day, I received an email from Stanford’s Medical School inviting me to speak at their conference in September. I quite literally remember my jaw dropping at the sight of the invitation.

My mission is to continue to raise awareness for childhood cancer, sarcoma, on a global level rather than local level. Sarcoma is a cancer that takes 1 in 2 children and many of these children won't have the chance to share their experience. My presentation aimed to be the bridge for these children in speaking the story of sarcoma with the world.

Thanks to the Tanglin Alumni Grant, I was able to travel across the globe, from Melbourne, to San Francisco, to Palo Alto (i.e. Silicon Valley) to attend Stanford’s most prestigious event: MedX. The conference lasted three days from 7am to 6pm and was filled with talks by the brightest and most ambitious minds of the medical industry. I listened to speakers who’d worked closely with Obama on his political campaigns, spoke to researchers sponsored

by NASA and bonded with fellow cancer advocates. I truly believe those three short days were some of the best days of my life.

Being able to share my own story with such inspiring and motivated people was simply the icing on the cake.

Amongst my audience that day were paediatricians, nurses, UX designers, cancer survivors, healthcare film

producers and, most importantly, my father (who flew all the way from Malaysia to see me talk). I spoke about my time in hospital, my experience with doctors and my recent efforts in raising awareness for childhood cancer (specifically sarcoma) through my foundation, Crutch4Sarcoma. The silence in the room, the animated facial expressions and overall engagement as I spoke about my journey was amazing. It was extraordinary.

Following the conference, I was fortunate enough to visit a paediatric palliative care home. A few weeks prior to my trip, I’d stumbled upon a TED talk by Kathy Hull, a paediatric psychologist who’d established an incredible home for terminally ill children in California. Being absolutely mesmerised by her work, I decided to reach out and contact the home, which (by sheer luck!) happened to be a short forty-minute drive from Palo Alto. They responded immediately and were kind enough to invite me to visit their home during the short period of time I was in the country. So, on my last day, I headed off to the George Mark Children’s House: a beautiful, cosy and homely residence spread over five acres for terminally ill children and their families.

Surprisingly, G.M. Children’s House was the first paediatric palliative care centre founded in the USA (though there are several in the UK!). The House encompasses 8 patient rooms with family suites. No scary machines or tubes hang down from the walls near the bed frames, no harsh fluorescent lighting, no white walls and VCT flooring, and not one ‘bleep’ to be heard within the entire home. On the contrary, the patient rooms are painted in the brightest of colours, each with its individual theme: Sea Breeze, Jungle Safari and more. They all feature enormous Frenchstyle windows that look out onto the home’s peaceful and charming garden. A daybed is also found in each room, for parents, friends or for any sleepovers.

To have been able to finish my trip with such a visit, and to see the compassion and thought that went into creating such a unique, colourful, bright and peaceful place for terminally ill children, was truly an honour. I couldn’t have hoped for a more humbling way to end my incredible journey to the States.”

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Alumni Grant 2016-17

Carnivore Conservation and Research Namibia Theo Atkinson

Theo Atkinson (2017 cohort) received an Alumni Grant funded by the TTS Foundation for his volunteer work with Carnivore Conservation and Research in Namibia. In order to match the grant, Theo spent three months working as a lifeguard. He will be studying biological science (zoology) at university and therefore this trip not only provided a great life experience but will also be beneficial to his studies.

My month long trip started with two weeks at the N/a’an ku sê (pronounced nankusé) Animal Sanctuary. After a quick tour and briefing, I was shown my accommodation – a tent, which was a 10 minute walk through the bush from the Lapa (the main common area and eating area for volunteers). I spent the rest of the day getting to know my way around the farm as well and being introduced the other volunteers. I was surprised at how many animals were on the farm – cheetahs, banded mongoose, pole cats and genets just to name a few. Off the farm, there were multiple enclosures with animals including leopards, lions and wild dogs. All the animals in the sanctuary have been taken in for different reasons including being found injured on the side of the road, their parents shot, or they were considered pests and would be killed otherwise. If the co-ordinators believed it was safe and appropriate, animals would be released back into the wild.

During the following two weeks, I contributed in multiple different activities around the farm. The volunteers were split up into groups of roughly 5 people. Each morning at 8am, all volunteers would meet at the food preparation building and we would be told what activities each group would be doing for the day. These ranged from preparing food for the animals to taking the cheetahs for a walk. There were many highlights, one of which were the baboon walks. We would open the doors to the 30 juvenile baboons who would walk along side us into the bush. They would often bound up beside us and reach their arms into the air, a signal to lower your arm and lift them onto your shoulders or carry them in your arms. Often 3 baboons at a time would use this taxi service simultaneously while occupying themselves by grooming our hair. Another highlight was the cheetah walk. Obviously there was no grooming involved but the cheetahs were tame and would come extremely close. In Namibia it is law that no-one is

allowed to touch the carnivores for fear of these animals being exploited in the tourist industry or pet trade. Another notable event was when the coordinators decided that the kudu and hartebeest that were roaming freely throughout the farm alongside the volunteers, were now too large and needed to be taken down to the reserve. This required the animals to be darted with a sedative. The hartebeest were fine, however the kudu went crazy, drunkenly sprinting around the farm!

After 2 weeks at the farm, I took an 8 hour, extremely bumpy minibus ride to Kanaan, a spotted hyena conservation and research site in the middle of the Namibia desert. The area is barren and the research site is half the size of Singapore with only 20 people living there. The activities consisted of multiple hikes to scout out possible hyena lairs, track hyena footprints and search for hyena kills. During the day the temperature here often reached above 40°C therefore these hikes required very early starts to avoid the hottest time of the day. The information gathered from these hikes would then be used to determine a suitable time and place to dart and collar a hyena. This collar sends data to a satellite so that the hyenas’ movements can be tracked remotely. We also exchanged the memory cards of many of the camera traps that are situated at water holes, bait sites and known hyena lairs. We would then sort through the images in the evenings. Other activities included game counts on horseback and in a vehicle, as well the removal of redundant fences erected by the previous owner of the site and recycling these materials to be used as specialised roadside fences that stop cars from going off-road, but allowing animals to pass through. The purpose of all these activities was to increase the data and knowledge of the ecology of the landscape so that future conservation efforts can be implemented.

After a week in Kanaan I took a 4 hour bus ride to Neuras, a leopard and cheetah research site near the Naukluft Mountains. The activities here were similar to those in Kanaan - hikes looking for tracks and marking trees, game counts and general maintenance. Something that really stood at Neuras were the meerkats. A group of 6 meerkats had been transferred from the N/a’an ku sê farm to Neuras to be released. We released them but not far enough away from where we were staying because for two days they terrorised us with their surprisingly vicious bites and relentless attitude. For these 2 days we spent most of the time standing on chairs rather than sitting on chairs. We managed to capture them and release them further away. Another day that stood out was a day trip to Sossuslvei National Park. These are the oldest and largest sand dunes in the world. This required a very early and cold start of 3am to make it to the biggest dune, “Big Daddy” which took 2 hours to walk barefoot up, then a 5-minute roll down, to make it back to the truck before the sand got too hot to walk on. We then spent the afternoon jumping into natural springs. We even spent one morning helping a local spring water factory load 24 tonnes of bottled water onto a truck after one of their machines broke.

I learnt a lot during my stay in Namibia - how cold it gets at night, the names of animals I had never heard of and how to carry out and record game counts. It was an enriching experience where I gained confidence travelling independently, being exposed to new adventures and gaining knowledge on a subject that I am truly passionate about.

To anyone interested in volunteering for projects such as this, I highly recommend doing research on the project first. There were organisations disguised as conservation projects but they were actually tourist based attractions that did more harm to the environment than good and some of their activities were unethical and borderline illegal.

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Alumni Grant 2017-18

ZeroDays ‘CTF’ Ethical Hacking Competition Sophia McCall

Photography Credits: Institute of Technology Blanchardstown Facebook Page

Sophia McCall (2016 cohort) received an Alumni Grant funded by the TTS Foundation to attend the ZeroDays ethical hacking competition in Dublin to help improve her ethical hacking skills and exposure to the professional information security industry. The opportunity to attend this competition not only allowed Sophia to progress in her personal development but also supported her studies in a BSc Hons in Cyber Security Management at Bournemouth University. In preparation for the trip Sophia had to qualify to represent her university through an in-house competition hosted by the Bournemouth University Cyber Security Society (BUCSS) of which she is Vice President. After successful qualification, the chosen teams were put through intense training prior to travelling to Ireland. Sophia worked part-time as a Level 1 Engineer Technician at Samsung to earn the matching funding for her trip.

Sophia reports: Last year in October, I represented the United Kingdom in the European Cyber Security Challenge – an international cyber security competition supported by ENISA, the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security. During my time at the competition, through successful networking I was kindly invited to attend the Zero Days Ethical Hacking ‘CTF’ competition in Dublin, Ireland by the Irish team coach. A ‘CTF’ competition, also known as ‘Capture the Flag’ competitions,

are cyber security competitions that are composed of a different variety of hacking and security related challenges. Every time a challenge is solved, a “flag” is awarded in addition to points given to your team. Usually consisting of teams of four or five, together you must work against the clock to solve as many challenges you can – including web hacking, lockpicking, cryptography, network hacking and analysis and infrastructure hacking to name a few. In the run up to the competition I trained with my team weekly both in person and online to improve our communication skills. We identified our weaknesses and practiced skills to be more prepared for competition.

When the day of the competition arrived, it was an early start of 9am to set up and prepare our laptops and hacking tools for the competition - it was going to be a long 7-hour day of hacking as many things as we could! This competition was one of the best ethical hacking competitions I have attended, the atmosphere was vibrant, and everyone was incredibly welcoming and friendly – especially as we had travelled from the UK to attend the competition. There was a “Game of Thrones” fancy dress theme to add a little bit more fun to the competition! It was also a great opportunity to network with the sponsors of the competition – including big name companies such as Amazon and Deloitte. After a gruelling 7 hours of attempting to crack codes, break websites and hack systems, the day closed to an end and all we could do was wait for the results.

Out of over 60+ university/college level teams from all over Europe, my team won 3 rd place at the competition and I can’t thank the TTS Foundation enough for enabling me to attend this competition.

Winning lockpicking training sets and “VIP” passes to penetration testing ethical hacking material by Practical Pentest labs, this experience has allowed me to continue to alleviate and progress my career in information security.

I learnt a lot attending this competition, as with any ethical hacking competition you attend – you are put under pressure to solve as many problems as efficiently as you can, like real-world ethical hacking roles in industry. These competitions help prepare myself for the real-world pressures of a high profile cyber security position and allow me to gauge what I must learn and improve on to help better myself in my future career. Having an established presence in the United Kingdom information security world, this competition also allowed me to branch further into the international circuit, allowing me to expand my connections and network with other like-minded individuals and industry professionals to help build a foundation of support for when I start my career in cyber. These competitions help teach real-world “hands-on” hacking skills that can be applied to future jobs in information security, and I’m always taking away new skills from a competition. If anyone is interested in going into a career in cyber security, I can’t recommend it enough. As our world is becoming more reliant and intertwined with technology, the need for cyber security specialists is rising. There are some brilliant degrees and certifications that can help you get into cyber. My biggest advice is just do it! You don’t necessarily have to have cyber security experience to start learning, there are loads of open-source learning tools online and books that can help you break into the industry.

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Alumni Grant 2016-17

Skiing, Tignes (France) Katie Jelpke

Katie Jelpke (2014 cohort) received an Alumni Grant for SGD1,000 funded by the TTS Foundation to fund a trip to Tignes, France to learn how to ski. This trip challenged her to work on core skills that would be useful for her other sports and activities throughout her university career.

To match the funding, she earned the money through tutoring A-Level geography during her second year at University.

Katie reports: perseverance, balance, and making decisions at speed. These attributes are key within the sport of Polo and the foundation from skiing gave me a jump start into this fast-paced sport. The journey started in Durham (UK), bags packed and tickets printed we waited in the cold morning for the coach to take us on the 21-hour journey to Tignes. Through the grey light of wintry morning we drove towards Calais, arriving in perfect time for the next ferry to France. Although the trip across the channel was choppy, it didn’t dampen any of our spirits with numerous card games whiling away the time until we were back on the coach meandering through the French countryside arriving late afternoon. We couldn’t resist running straight to ski hire to pick up our rentals and get a head start on the baby slopes which were still open even in the fading light. The lessons started the next morning bright and early. Having had some previous ski experience many years ago, I opted for an intermediate level. Within the first ten minutes I realised that I had a lot to catch up on! We

were skiing straight down the icy reds and even tackled a few small jumps. After lagging behind in the first lesson, I was determined to advance before seeing the group the next day.

For each lesson we had a group of eight people. Each morning we met our instructor by the green slopes and started the journey to the top of the mountains. On two of the days, the clouds were so low we were only able to see a few metres in front of us meaning the group had to hold a caterpillar formation (one after the other) until we were at a lower elevation. The lessons primarily consisted of completing different level runs, culminating in a black run on the last day of the trip. The instructor also focused on individual strengths and weaknesses encouraging us to push the boundaries and try new techniques. For myself, it was perfecting turning on steep slopes. To do this, he encouraged me to lift the upslope foot off the snow when turning so as not to rely on it and make my other foot do all the work.

Each afternoon was spent practicing the lesson material with friends and exploring the slopes. Over the week we learnt how to tackle jumps, ski off-piste, 360 degree turns, and skiing backwards. It was an intense five days grappling with all these new skills.

When returning to university Polo SUPA Nationals were looming and although different sports, the same techniques were applicable. We cantered into each chukka with confidence and balance helping not only with hitting but also ride-offs. The skiing experience was amazing and with the skills I learned from being so transferrable to polo, I set about planning my next trip. In January 2018 I returned to the slopes in Avoriaz. After spending the first day remembering all that I had learnt the previous year, I started to become more adventurous. Through instruction and general exploration, I learnt how to complete the ski parks with jumps, ramps and moguls. One park allowed us to ski into a treehouse and then out and down through a winding forest path. I hope to keep skiing on a regular basis and in between focus on other sports such as Polo and Ice Skating.

On the trip I formed long lasting friendships. We all recently completed a second ski trip together in Avoriaz. Through getting back on skis for the first time in eight years and completing a black run on the last day, I learnt perseverance every time I fell over, the importance of non-verbal communication whilst hurtling down the slopes, and pulling together to help others. I could list many skills that skiing has taught me and that I have since used in other sports but the main thing that this trip gave me were amazing memories.

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Alumni Grant 2016-17

Discovering Europe Kayleigh Mands

Kayleigh Mands (2015 cohort) received an Alumni Grant funded by the TTS Foundation for her solo trip to explore Europe. Her aim was to increase her independence and challenge her own comfort zone by travelling on her own. Kayleigh was also inspired to visit ancient churches in each country to gain a deeper understanding of different religions.

To earn the matching funds, Kayleigh worked every weekend in a local café and after that, as a nursing assistant which was more flexible and allowed her to work more hours.

Kayleigh reports: as a student of Adult Nursing at Stirling University, I am passionate about understanding people and their stories. Meeting different people on my travels has pushed me to communicate more effectively with those who don’t speak English and those who have different religions.

Varna, Bulgaria was my first destination where I visited my Grandparents. It gave me the opportunity to reconnect with my Grandfather. Having thought this part of the trip was only associated with a “family meetup”, I saw some of the harsh realities of poverty within the country. There was one consistency throughout my trip however and that was the architectural beauty of the cathedrals and churches. We visited Dormition of the Theotokos Cathedral and it was an absolute joy to visit, specifically when seeking some shade from the sweltering heat. Although it was difficult to see some of the harsh realities of poverty, it was evident that religion truly prevails. Overall, it was an excellent start to my Europe trip.

Prague was the next destination on my itinerary. On my first day I took the opportunity to view one of the most amazing wonders Prague has to offer: its Astronomical clock. The Prague Astronomical Clock which has been around for over 600 years has been one of the greatest treasures of the city. To view more of this ancient city, I went on a Segway tour. I also explored St Vitus Cathedral located in one of the largest castles

in Europe. It’s size and shear beauty really intrigued me as the architecture involved was near inconceivable especially when you take on board the dates that this building was created.

My trip to Munich took a more serious note as I wanted to explore Dachau, the first concentration camp opened in Germany in 1933. I visited prisoner cells that held what were considered, the more important prisoners of war. These cells were near uninhabitable and the shear reality of what these prisoners must have endured was a sobering experience. With accommodation fit for two hundred people, numbers in the thousands were squeezed in, in order to maximise the capacity of the camp. The tour turned even colder when I saw the execution chambers also known as the gas chambers. Despite such a hard hitting experience, I would seriously recommend such a tour as it is educational and eye opening. On a lighter note, I managed to squeeze in a bike ride around the city, visiting monuments such as the Olympic stadium and the breathtaking Marienplatz in the city centre.

My last destination of the trip was Barcelona. Sadly, as soon as I had landed in Barcelona the news broke about the terrorist attack in Las Ramblas (a main tourist area). It is a long pedestrian pathway around 1.2 kilometres full of restaurants, souvenir kiosks and local shops. Only a day after the horrific attack, thousands of people stood strong and were showing their support. It was a sight that I will never forget. Flowers everywhere, shrines of fallen loved ones and letters of support to families was a very hard hitting and genuinely an incredible sight. I had the opportunity to see the beautiful Sagrada Familia on the same day before heading out to a celebration of the Gracia festival in which the local people aim to bring people together in communal activities and event. It was an amazing experience: Paper Mache sculptures of everything you could imagine with music, food and dancing - even in dark times. Barcelona was definitely an unreal experience and I do hope to make it back there. I even squeezed in the opportunity to experience Spanish football watching Barcelona vs Real Betis where the home side won 2-0! Overall, my Europe trip was one that I will never forget, seeing such different cultures and creating new experiences and memories was definitely an enriching experience.

Having been at University for the past 2 years, I have been pushed out of my comfort zone without the safety net of my parents and family home to become the strong independent self I am today. This trip allowed me to step outside of my safe bubble in Scotland and travel around some of the neighbouring countries which make up Europe. I would highly recommend any trip to develop one’s knowledge of European culture and encouraging them to become a more global citizen. It was a fantastic experience and one that I shall never forget!

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Alumni Grant 2017-18

Chemical Engineering collaboration in Korea Matthew Kubal

Matthew Kubal (2014 cohort) received an Alumni Grant funded by the TTS Foundation for $1000 to expand his knowledge of global chemical engineering and foreign practices by meeting with chemical engineers in South Korea. Korea has a vastly different engineering environment from the western world, especially in cosmetics. Thus, Matthew met with chemical engineers from CNTEC, a South Korean cosmetics company specializing in sunscreen, to broaden his knowledge and learn about how business is carried out within the country. This experience presented the opportunity to apply Matthew’s knowledge from his chemical engineering degree to the real world and network with professionals.

Funding for the trip was raised via tutoring during the semester and vacation periods as well as working at the Bath Rugby Club.

On the first day of my trip I travelled to the CNTEC building located on the outskirts of Seoul, to meet representative Kyung Sung Lee. Ms. Lee was sent from the manufacturing facility to brief me about the company before I visited the laboratory. She explained the nature of the business and some of their future projects, such as blue-light sunscreen which prevents ageing and skin damage that can be caused from computer back lights. We also discussed how the company wishes to expand to Europe and how language barriers and cultural differences seemed to be holding the company back.

They asked about the UK cosmetics industry specifically, in which we compared the differences in the chemical compositions of products on offer, as well as the lack of consumer interest in daily sunscreen usage in Europe.

I was also given the opportunity to present my work to Ms. Lee regarding molecularly imprinted polymers used in the separation of ibuprofen enantiomers to give a pure product of S-ibuprofen. She gave me some feedback on my work as well as information about how similar projects are done at CNTEC, just on a much larger scale.

After the briefing and over the course of the next few days, I visited their lab used for product development and testing. Unfortunately, due to company protocol, I was unable to take photos in the lab itself. However, I was able to review documents detailing the finer aspects of their newest products, documents that were not made available to the public. CNTEC’s focus is on SUPERSIL, a silicone emulsifier and component used in various skin care treatments. Whilst they would not reveal all details on the product, the main selling points of the product were transparency, smoothness, moisturizing, “cushion effect” and matte finish. I learnt that Korean consumers focus on a “dewy” skin look, meaning properties that provide moisture as well as thermal stability (due to South Korea’s hot summer climate). Therefore, SUPERSIL was also developed into an elastomer gel with thermal stability up to 250oC, making it ideal for South Korean consumers.

The main outcome of the trip was to learn the differences in engineering practices between the UK and South Korea as well as to network. I found the focus of cosmetics in Korea is vastly different from the UK, in the sense that the product audience range was much larger, targeting younger people and aiming to use less aggressive and more water-based products. This approach is to hydrate and slow skin ageing rather than stripping old skin. It also allowed for better emulsifiers. I learned how they take their lab scale experiments and scale up to pilot plants. Mainly batch processes were used as well, as this allowed for better control of hydraulic retention times and is more suitable for organic substances. As I am interested in entering the cosmetics industry after completing my degree, this information could be essential, as many European companies are modelling their products after South Korean ones, the country seen as the epitome of skincare.

My recommendations to anyone doing a trip to Korea, is to learn some of the language to get you by and if possible contact someone there who can speak English as well. There are many cultural practices, even within business, that are necessary to learn to show respect and get along with colleagues more easily, such as bowing and presenting gifts on arrival. Having a Native Korean speaker there means these practices can be understood more easily.

In Korea, the additional challenge of a cultural barrier was presented in the work I went there to do. Over the course of the trip this gave me the opportunity to develop the skill of adapting to a very foreign workplace.

This is something that is becoming increasingly important in a globalised economy, as more people are working abroad and requiring these skills to be put to use. Being exposed to vastly different points of views on the subject of engineering and also non work related aspects of life gave me an appreciation for how and why the work environment and country of Korea is so different to the UK. Overall, the trip confirmed and challenged certain preconceptions about Korea and at the same time gave me insight into their engineering practices which I can take back with me.

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Alumni Grant 2017-18

Brisbane Touch Rugby Trip Emily Crowe

Emily Crowe (2014 cohort) received an Alumni Grant funded by the TTS Foundation for the Brisbane Touch Rugby trip as it provided the opportunity to develop coaching, refereeing and planning experience.

Emily coached the 15s girls in preparation for the Queensland All Schools Touch Football Championships, the biggest schools Touch Rugby event anywhere in the world. Over 400 teams and 5000 students converge on Whites Hills, Brisbane in October every year. The games are played over four days, with over 1500 games being played.

Emily earned her funding through a PE and Sports Internship at Tanglin Trust School.

The project provided me with the opportunity to develop my coaching experience. Although coaching is already a strength of mine, there are still areas for further development and growth. Through the opportunity to first-hand observe and experience coaching within top tier teams in the Championships, I could further develop my knowledge of the game for my own Touch career as both an England Touch player and as a coach. I was privileged enough to gain coaching insights from Peter Bell, the Australian Women’s Open Touch Rugby Coach which I can use in my own coaching as well as for my development as a player on the England Touch Rugby Squad. Additionally, the England Men’s Open Touch Rugby Coach, Benny Smith was in Brisbane at the same time and generously gave his time to provide our Tanglin girls with coaching at the highest level.

Furthermore, the project has provided me with the opportunity to referee, as I am a qualified Level 1 Touch Rugby Referee. Therefore, as I am currently at Level 1 (and referees are ranked up to Level) there are still areas of growth for my refereeing experience. I was fortunate enough to have a Level 6 World Cup referee from Australia (the world’s foremost nation for Touch Rugby) guide me through a game, providing me with

key feedback to develop my refereeing. By going on this project, I took on fresh challenges as well as gained new skills by refereeing at a high-level event that is internationally recognised. By developing my refereeing ability, confidence and experience, I can now use this both for my own growth as a player and coach and for the benefit of student teams at Tanglin.

Furthermore, planning touch sessions has been an area I have been able to improve. By going on this project, I have been being able to progress the quality of my planning of sessions to the benefit of my team.

As the championships progressed, so did my team, therefore, we focused on different points as the girl’s game developed. Touch rugby is a team sport and has, therefore, provided me with the chance to work collaboratively with the players I am coaching. By working together, I can focus on their areas of improvement and they are able to give feedback to me on where they do not yet feel as confident as they should be. This ultimately has enabled me to develop further as a coach as I work with the Tanglin players.

This communication between the team and myself has been a key component of the project. I am very grateful and wish to give many thanks to the TTS Foundation for enabling me to be able to use my coaching and refereeing expertise at this once in a lifetime event.

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Alumni Grant 2016-17

Ski Instructor Course, Whistler Matthew Gledhill

Matthew Gledhill (2017 cohort) received an Alumni Grant funded by the TTS foundation to go on a 3week course to complete his CSIA Level 1 and 2 ski instructor qualifications. On completing the course, he was hired as a ski instructor by Whistler Kids teaching children aged 5-12 of varying skiing abilities.

Matthew matched his grant by working as an intern at Tanglin Trust School in the PE department where he coached badminton and volleyball and assisted during GCSE PE theory lessons and Key Stage 3 (Year 7-9) core PE lessons.

Click here to view video.

Having skied in Whistler, Canada since I was 3 years old, I have been taught by many ski instructors and in recent years it has been my ambition to spend a season there to gain further qualifications and to teach skiing.

Through applying via the Alltracks course, staff accommodation and a job as a ski instructor was guaranteed on completion of the instructor qualifications and a job interview. This housing was subsidized costing half of what similar accommodation in Whistler would cost. The rooms housed 4 people, 2 sets of bunk beds with a shared living area, kitchen and bathroom. Great preparations ahead of university!

For most of the 5 months I cooked for myself. This proved to be challenging at times after returning from work tired, but it has given me a lot of experience which will be useful when I am at university. To save money, my roommates and I ordered non-perishable goods online as the local supermarkets were expensive.

As I would be working with the Whistler Kids, I was required to have some previous experience working with children. Thanks to my CAS service of working with children at the Gurkha camp helping them to read and learn English, as well as my time spent as an intern at Tanglin, I matched the requirements necessary for the job. These experiences also allowed me to gain a better understanding of what it would be like having to organise and teach children ensuring progression as well as a fun day.

Before applying for the Alltracks course, I had to apply for a Canadian work visa (IEC). This process was time consuming and had to be done during my final year at Tanglin which added more stress but I was able to manage it effectively and received my visa.

I worked 5 to 6 days a week, leaving me with time to ski at one of the world’s best ski resorts and getting to know so many new people from all around the world. Through both the teaching and my own skiing, this trip has been both invaluable and incredibly enjoyable.

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Alumni Grant 2017-18

Dive Master Internship in Tenerife Zoë Sykes

Zoë Sykes (2014 cohort) received an Alumni Grant funded by the TTS Foundation for $1,000 to complete a Divemaster Internship in Tenerife. Having completed an Undergraduate degree in Criminology, this internship acted as a stepping stone in pursuing a career as a police underwater recovery diver.

The funding was matched by a part-time job in a mental health hospital and work as a student brand ambassador.

I arrived in Tenerife already qualified as a PADI advanced open water diver and left a month later as a certified Master Scuba Diver, having completed five specialties on top of the requirements for the rescue diver and dive master courses. Throughout this time, I gained so much more than just improving my diving skills. I became a lot more confident and learnt to trust myself as a leader and be responsible for a group of divers and ensuring their safety. I also met some incredible people who are so passionate about conservation and protecting the environment and it was a fascinating to learn about their work and projects on land and in the ocean.

I really enjoyed the rescue course and the practice scenarios. There was some pretty bad acting by my instructors to make the scenarios come to life. It was one of the highlights of my time in Tenerife! I think that whether you’re diving recreationally or as a professional, it’s invaluable to know what to do in an emergency and potentially save someone’s life. However, the skills section of the divemaster course was

very challenging for me. Being able to do a skill and having the ability to demonstrate it are very different things. It took me a lot of practice to be able to do the skills slowly and clearly for the benefit of future students, which was frustrating and tedious at times. Another aspect of the course was a night dive, which I was already slightly apprehensive about. It didn’t help that my torch stopped working five minutes in.

Despite this, it was amazing to see the reef so full of life with many nocturnal species. I’ll definitely be doing more night dives in the future!

When completing the dive against debris specialty, three of us collected over 4 kilos of rubbish in a tiny bay in under an hour. This mainly consisted of plastic fragments, bottles, cans and cigarette filters. It was horrible to see how much litter there was in such a small area! We all know that litter is an issue but seeing it all in a pile on land made it so much more realistic. I’m now much more conscious about ensuring that I put any rubbish in a secure bin, so it can’t blow away. Additionally, I have personally made small lifestyle changes in order to reduce the amount of waste as it has such a detrimental effect on our ecosystems.

Overall, I’m so grateful to the TTS Foundation which allowed me to have this opportunity. Having had that time doing something I love and gaining more qualifications, has been the experience of a lifetime.

Hopefully one day I’ll be a police recovery diver although I am fully aware that the Tenerife ocean is slightly different to the quarries and rivers of the UK. I would highly recommend any Tanglin Alumni to apply for the grant and improve any skills or learn about something that they’re passionate about.

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Alumni Grant 2017-18

Californian Adventure, USA Ayushi Chandaria & Francesca Vincenzi

Ayushi Chandaria (2016 Cohort) and Francesca Vincenzi (2017 Cohort) received an Alumni Grant funded by the TTS Foundation to explore California, to learn new water sports and skills such as a Lifeguard training course. In addition to this, they wanted to learn about the history and culture of LA, the film industry and to take full advantage of living in the centre of Hollywood.

Ayushi matched her funding through her internship at Google this summer and Francesca taught at the Italian school in Singapore during her holidays.

We started planning our trip in January, and found the ideal dates to be in June, after both our terms had ended. After our initial skype call with the Alumni Grant Panel, we began researching specific locations and programs that were convenient and still fulfilled our purpose of learning new water sports and skills. We also researched different Lifeguard training programs and ultimately decided to go with the American Red Cross because of its central location, thorough training and recommendations from people we knew. This was initially challenging because we lived in two different locations and therefore struggled to find time to create a detailed itinerary. However, this turned out to be very helpful because once we arrived we were able to stay on track and successfully complete all the activities that we had planned. Since we had planned our routes and taken travel time into consideration, we were able to be efficient and enjoy the experience more as we weren't stressed.

Francesca arrived on the 6th of June and we spent the first few days in Palo Alto while Ayushi finished her finals and Francesca recovered from her flight. We explored Palo Alto and San Francisco in the evenings and visited places such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Ghirardelli Square.

We flew to LA two days later and arrived at Los Alamitos, where we completed our Lifeguard training course. We spend the day learning about water safety and lifesaving activities. We learnt new skills such as on-site rescue and practiced treading water and swimming whilst carrying a load. At the end, we both passed the brick test and received our certification from the American Red Cross. The experience was rewarding and by the end of the course we felt confident in our abilities to perform lifesaving tasks. We also met many interesting people and learnt about the interesting backgrounds of the people on our course. We highly recommend anyone who wants to complete a similar training course to select the American Red Cross Program as we had a very positive experience.

The next day we moved to a hotel in the centre of Hollywood. We spent the next few days exploring other land and water sports including stand up paddle boarding and surfing and hiking. We found a water sports centre right next to our hotel and completed a three-hour course each day for both Stand Up Paddle Boarding and Surfing. As well as the course, we took it upon ourselves to practice after our morning class to make sure that we had learnt a new skill by the end of the day. We found these water sports more challenging because they required a different set of water skills and balance then we were used to as competitive swimmers.

Our hike took us in to the rocky regions of LA. Planning this was a struggle because we were given conflicting advice between hiking up to the Hollywood sign or going to a less commercial location. We ultimately chose to explore the more organic parts of LA so we went to the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook. We left for the hike early in the morning and were able to catch a glimpse of the sunrise before we began our hike. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery. The hike was quite steep and involved many steps. We placed ourselves well and therefore found the hike very manageable and fun.

To learn more about the LA film industry, we visited The Warner Brother Filming Lots. Here we got to learn about how they filmed several movies and TV shows including classics like Batman, Casablanca, Wonder Women, Harry Potter, Friends and countless others. We were able to visit the original friends set and even sit on the famous couch. We also learnt more how the filming happens and how a simple change to a camera angle can create a whole new set in the eyes of the viewer.

Overall, we found the trip extremely valuable and we were able to learn new things as well as spend time with each other. The trip was particularly rewarding because we oversaw every aspect of planning and we had to be responsible as the trip was in our hands. We would highly recommend to others who want to plan a similar trip to be very thorough in planning the trip and also, we recommend getting the group Alumni Grant as it is also a way to maintain friendships within the Tanglin community.

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Alumni Grant 2016-17

Travelling and Studying Israel Adi Ginat

Adi Ginat (2017 cohort) received an Alumni Grant funded by the TTS Foundation to travel to Israel to gain a more in depth understanding of the conflict and tensions that arise there. This was done through meeting people with different views of the conflict, volunteering and getting to know surroundings, hiking both the desert in the south and the green hills in the north as well as attending many lectures by various people. This was done within the framework of a social learning leadership program. To raise money to match the Alumni Grant, Adi worked in a summer camp.

In my gap year I decided to join a program which would give me an opportunity to learn more about the Middle East conflict, volunteer within the community as well as travel Israel with 49 other like-minded people. The program offered a very different learning experience than in school. I feel I have left the ‘familiar borders’ of learning because I was able to study in a way which allows me to formulate my own opinion. Lessons often took place outside of a classroom as we travelled to the places we were learning about and we were able to hear different and conflicting opinions. Other than studying it was important that we kept active and we regularly took part in 5k and 10k runs.

We learned skills that I am not sure I would have learnt anywhere else, through hiking around Israel, such as; carry everything we needed on our backs, how to start a fire and cook on it, build

a shelter using nothing but rocks, a nylon sheet and rope, how to find water in the desert and most importantly how to navigate using a topology map and a compass.

Other than studying and travelling it was important to us to be involved in the community. Every Monday we would volunteer in various places. For example, I would wake up early and make breakfast for the elderly living in the area. We would talk about the politics, the news, their families and most challengingly teach them how to use technology. I also helped them with their chores. Other times I would go to a holocaust survivor’s house and help write a book about her story or go to a nearby school and help disadvantaged children with their homework and teach them life skills.

Participating in this program was an incredible opportunity in which I learnt more than I thought I would both about myself and about the world around me. I have gained skills and learnt to question the world around me before forming and strengthening my opinions. I have gained lifelong friends and I believe that participating in this program has changed my view on how I see the world as well as my part in it.

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Alumni Grant 2017-18

Tengah Island Conservation, Malaysia Helen Waghorne

Helen Waghorne (2016 cohort) received an Alumni Grant funded by the TTS Foundation to volunteer with the Tengah Island Conservation, a charity which aims to promote marine conservation both on land and in the sea. Land based tasks included turtle nest preservation and relocation, hatchery maintenance and releases along with the collection of biometric data. In addition, Helen completed fish identification training, evaluated the health of local reefs and maintained the growth of the coral nursery. She also arranged beach clean ups and ran education programmes for the guests at the nearby resort of Batu Batu.

Helen earned her matched funding through a part-time job at the Sealife Aquarium in Brighton.

Please click here and here to watch Helen’s videos.

I’ve always been passionate about ocean conservation; hence I chose to study Marine Biology at University. Getting the chance to work with a marine conservation charity in a part of the world that I love was an incredible experience.

From the first day, there was so much to learn and experience! For example, a juvenile Hawksbill turtle washed up onto the beach tangled up in seaweed. Juvenile turtles go through a patch in their lives where they float on seagrass in the open ocean, and in this case the raft had been caught up in a storm. Thankfully, we were able to release it after it had had a chance to rest and recover. I also got to release over 300 hatchlings from nests relocated to Palau Tengah from the surrounding islands; which gave them the best chance for survival away from turtle egg poachers. It was amazing to get

the opportunity to work so closely with such an incredible creature and apply the knowledge that I gained during my time at University and learn more specifics about conservation fieldwork.

As well as working with the turtles, my time as part of the Tengah Island Conservation team was spent creating and maintaining a coral nursery which is hopefully going to be used to help the reef surrounding the island recover from damage. Coral has a special place in my heart so getting to work with it in such a hand’s on approach was fantastic. I also got to apply some of the skills from other parts of my education such as beach profiling and biological surveys.

Most importantly to me though, was the difference we made as part of the team, through weekly beach and underwater clean ups around the island. Although it was saddening to realize the sheer quantity of plastics, discarded fishing gear and polystyrene discarded into the sea. You can see from some of the photos we managed to remove a large quantity of rubbish. Even so, despite our best efforts I still felt like some days we weren’t making a difference at all. My proudest moment of the whole trip though had to be pulling up a pair of ghost nets (abandoned fishing nets left behind on a reef) which weighed 84kg and 89kg apiece. Turtles and other marine animals can get caught in such nets. One of the nets covered precious coral which couldn’t breathe and grow and would have died had we not intervened.

Overall, it was an incredible experience, not just because of the skills I learned but also because of the friends I made and the fun I had on the trip. Highlights were scuba diving every day for surveys, canoeing round the island on my days off and just spending as much time in the water as possible.

This experience was hugely valuable as I pursue my dream of becoming a marine biologist. Thank you to Tanglin and the TTS Foundation for this amazing opportunity.

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Alumni Grant 2017-2018

Language Exchange in Montpellier, France Ashleigh Chow

Ashleigh Chow (Class of 2017) received an Alumni Grant funded by the TTS Foundation to embark on a month-long programme to learn French with Accent Francais, a French school in Montpellier. During her gap year, Ashleigh decided to pick up French as a foreign language, as a springboard to discover and understand more deeply the art and culture of France.

To earn matching funds for the Alumni Grant, Ashleigh worked as a gallery intern at STPI Gallery, and worked as a retail assistant.

During my gap year, I decided that I was going to learn French, because I knew the language would stand me in good stead as a future student at the Courtauld Institute of Art. The Courtauld Gallery houses a remarkable collection of paintings; mainly French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works. For three months prior to my trip to France, I attended French language courses in Singapore.

On my train ride to Montpellier, I felt nervous about meeting my host mum Nabila but she immediately embraced me à la française, with three kisses on my cheeks. Over the next few days I settled in quickly in my host family’s home and began attending classes. The TTS Alumni Grant enabled me to sign up for the Super Intensif course, attending classes from 9.30am to 4pm every day, with private lessons on Monday and Friday.

I feel very lucky to have attended classes with Accent Français. They held excursions at low costs for all students once or twice a week, all led by Montpellier’s friendliest man, Jean-Paul. With this amazing opportunity I was able to discover the Roman city of Nîmes, the fishing town Sète, the vibrant city of Marseille, and the quaint medieval town of St Guilhem-le-Désert. As a future art history student, I was very keen to visit the artistic town of Arles with my new-found friends. It is famous for being the town of Vincent van Gogh. We visited the many spots in which van Gogh had painted, including the hospital he was in before he died, and many other spots in Arles.

During my one month in the south of France, I found myself gaining the confidence to use French daily.

From being too shy to say anything, I went to having full conversations in a matter of weeks! I was delighted my efforts paid off and I went from an A1 to a B1 (according to the CEPR framework) in the French language!

To anybody who is considering improving their skills in a foreign language by learning it in its native country - DO IT! It has been an amazing experience for me, learning the language hands-on, speaking to native speakers every day. The amount that I learnt within one month in France was way more than I could have imagined, especially comparing it with the three months lessons I took in Singapore. I have truly had the best summer of my life thanks to the TTS Foundation Alumni Grant, improving my language skills whilst having a blast!

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Tanglin Trust School 95 Portsdown Road Singapore 139299 Tel: (65) 6778 0771 Fax: (65) 6777 5862 www.tts.edu.sg Tanglin Trust School Ltd 196100114C Reg. period: 7 June 2017 to 6 June 2023 Tanglin Trust School Foundation Limited UEN: 20122078W