Tanglin Lifestyle
Open Minds A recent initiative by Year 9 students raised more than $2,000 for local charity Boys’ Town. Parent organiser Hayley Sharratt tells The Voice how they did it – and why she’s a passionate advocate for charities across Singapore
During the Christmas break, while many other families were enjoying lazy mornings, Tanglin parent Hayley Sharratt found herself coaxing her son Henry out of the house for his daily five-kilometre run. “He’d set himself the goal of running 100 kilometres over the holidays, and had decided to break that down into little blocks,” she tells. “But, getting it done wasn’t always straightforward!” The ambitious goal was part of a fundraiser for Singapore charity Boys’ Town that saw six students from Class 9.3 pledge to run, walk, cycle and swim in return for donations. Boys’ Town is a specialised children and youth in-need social service agency that caters to both boys and girls, from infants to young adults. Each year, it works with around 2,000 children and youths, providing services such as fostering, youth outreach, adventure therapy and counselling, reyling on public donations to continue its work. Says Hayley, “The children really related to the work that Boys’ Town do; it’s a charity that supports teenagers just like them. Ideally, we would have visited one of their centres and supported the children there in a way that’s more hands-on, but obviously that wasn’t possible given local restrictions. Giving money still has an impact – charities like Boys’ Town can’t operate without it.” Hayley has a great deal of knowledge in this area. While she is currently enjoying
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with her young family, she has used her experience to help support charities both outside the school and through it, as a Class Rep. In addition to being Class Rep for Henry’s Year 9 tutor group, Hayley is Class Rep for her eldest son’s Year 11 tutor group and her youngest son’s Nursery class. She also has another son in Year 1.
“I think Tanglin is very good at talking about mental health issues. My eldest son in particular is very interested in my work” a career break, she previously worked as an accountant at Deutsche Bank for eight years and, during that time, was an active member of its employee-led Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) committee. “The committee worked to connect individuals at the bank with a specific cause,” she explains. “At one point, we were working with 42 charities and I personally met representatives from many of them. While I’ve always had an interest in charitable work, that was what really pulled me in.” Since leaving the bank to spend more time
The Year 9 Boys’ Town fundraiser was a huge success; the Giving.sg page the charity helped the students set up quickly reached its target, prompting them to open a second (to date, the two pages have helped raise $2,375). A representative of Boys’ Town, Yen Ting, emailed the Year 9s a special message of thanks: “What [you] have each done is more than a challenge, it is an amazing achievement. For such a young age, [to be] determined to do good ... is something extraordinary.” Hayley hopes the practice of fundraising will continue to gather momentum in the class. “Next time, we’ll aim to complete a challenge that’s less... sport-focused,” she says with a smile. “One of the boys, for instance, cycled 120km – for many young people, that would be daunting to commit to! Ideally, we can devise a task that plays to everybody’s strengths.” Outside Tanglin, Hayley is an advocate for a number of charities in the field of mental health; currently, she sits on the board of two: the Singapore Mental Health Film Festival (SMHFF), and Resilience Collective, and is a committee member for two others. She says it wasn’t a conscious choice to focus on this area, but rather something that grew naturally from an encounter years ago with a Singapore charity that supports people caring for loved ones struggling with mental health conditions. “I remember listening to a woman who
