5 minute read
Giving with Tanglin Parent Hayley
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.” 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.” 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.
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
the charity had helped via a support group; her adult daughter had suffered from depression for years and was virtually housebound, and she explained that the group had transformed her life, and the life of her daughter. I thought, ‘If you can change two people’s lives through something so simple, then what else can be done?’ From there, it ‘grew arms and legs’; once I was involved [in the field of mental health advocacy], I wanted to do whatever I could to help.”
The work proved transformative for Hayley, too. “I really saw that mental health issues are something everyone is affected by. It’s rare to find someone whose life they haven’t touched,” she says. “And, while there is progress being made here in Singapore in terms of the discussion around mental health, the stigma still exists. Many people are still afraid to declare on employment forms that they have a history of mental health issues, for example. They don’t want to ‘lose face’.”
“A large part of what these charities do is help to erode that stigma,” Hayley tells. “Often, people don’t mean to be dismissive about these issues; they just don’t have the awareness of how someone with a mental health condition feels or thinks.” SMHFF, for instance, uses the medium of film to break down barriers, while the Resilience Collective project, Photostory: From Darkness to Light, celebrates the journey of recovery through visual imagery. Hayley is pleased to note that, generally, young people seem more open to conversations around the subject. “I think Tanglin is very good at talking about mental health issues,” she says. “My eldest son in particular is very interested in my work. He is a firm believer that we should be more accepting of people’s differences and avoid labelling them. That he is so open to the discussion makes me feel hopeful. ”
Opposite: Tanglin parent and Class Rep Hayley helped organise the fundraiser (right and above) that saw Year 9 students raise $2,375 for local youth charity Boys’ Town.
