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PROJECT polaris

The North Star or Pole Star – aka Polaris – is famous for holding nearly still in our sky while the entire northern sky moves around it. It marks the way due north. Project Polaris aims to provide emotional support, inculcate meaningful life skills, and strengthen family bonds in single-parent children or low-income families. We provide direction and opportunities for these children to find their potential.

WHAT WE DO

Project Polaris has planned a total of six meaningful and exciting activities for our beneficiaries at Blessings HQ. We provide opportunities for our beneficiaries to learn important life skills during every session, ranging from resilience, critical thinking skills, decision making skills, to financial management. Various fun activities are planned to provide opportunities for them to discover their interests, express their creativity, express their feelings and emotions, and spend quality time with their family. These include trekking, terrarium making to practice self-care, cooking, carnival event to deepen bonds between children and parents, and secret pen pal to support their emotional well-being. There are many takeaways for the children and through this project, we hope that we can broaden their horizons and create fond memories with them!

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HEAR FROM OUR VOLUNTEERS

I think that the session went quite smoothly for my group and was also a learning experience for me. My previous volunteering experiences were with younger children so it was interesting to explore how to engage the children, especially because there were no fixed activities so alot of the time we were just talking to them. From that I realised the importance of rapport building and also having patience with the process. When we first met them, it was a little awkward and they were quite quiet and shy. But throughout the session they became more talkative and I noticed they were laughing and smiling more which made me feel quite heartened to see that they were feeling comfortable around us. I think it helped to just show genuine interest in the things they talked about and to ask them more questions to encourage them to share more.

- Suet Cheng, Volunteer
I think the volunteering session made me reflected alot on my own childhood and how childhood is really so precious sometimes - and it definitely made me really happy to know that my kid enjoyed himself alot yesterday too 🙂 I asked him what his fav game was and he was able to tell me his fav game while smiling and that made me feel really really happy & also cause my kid from Coney Island still talked to me with so much excitement I thought she forgot about me for a bit 😢 but I'm really really glad that I'm able to make new memories with these children and be a part of their childhood!

- Emily, Volunteer
The hike at Coney Island was really meaningful. We had a great conversation with the children and managed to explore many common topics of interest. We got to learn a great deal about one another’s hobbies, school life, friends and goals, and I hope it was as fruitful for the children as it was for us volunteers. 

It was not easy getting one of the children to open up initially, but through asking different questions and being really present, we were able to pick up on his interests and develop the conversation from there. This was a great exercise in learning how to connect with others. We also learnt about the importance of non-verbal cues. While the children insisted that they were not tired, we sensed that they were moving a bit slower and insisted on taking a break by the beach. I think this sensitivity is important when working with children and in fact people more generally, as they may not always voice their true feelings and thoughts due to many possible reasons like shyness, pride, etc.

I think I’ve benefitted a lot from the activity and hope that it has also developed the children’s resilience and brought them joy through sharing about their goals and interests with us.

- Heer Ee, Volunteer

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