Seva 2012 - Vision

Seva 2011 was a journey of a life time for our family when we spent 9 months travelling and giving ourselves to various social transformation project across India, Kenya and Uganda. On 21 Apr 2012, Alvin was invited to speak at the Humaneity Inspires Event in Singapore and he shared the precious experience gained from our 3-month stay in Children's Garden Home, Kenya.

Seva 2012: Uplifting African Street Children

For the entire month of October 2012, Alvin will return to the Children's Garden Home for SEVA 2012 to build on various self-reliance initiatives, self-help projects and social enterprises we have started in 2011.

We also have set a goal to achieve in 2012 - to get 150 sponsors to sponsor 150 children in CGH, at S$700 per child for a full year of homecare and school. The rationale is straghtforward: when 150 sponsors come in, each supporting only 1 child, they will collectively help to cover about 80% of the annual operating cost of CGH. The remaining 20% will be covered by the income from various social enterprise self-help projects as well as donation. This will help CGH to achieve sustainability and therefore a stablized environment for the children to grow up in.

With the grace of Guruji Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, things and people somehow fall into their rightful places! It is a delight to have The Art of Living Kenya as our local partner organization to support Children's Garden Home. The AOL Kenya , led by our good friend and Chairperson Monika Fauth, will help to administer the sponsorship money and donation raised. Volunteers and teachers from The AOL Kenya family are also regularly helping the children and staff of CGH to learn yoga and meditation for self-empowerment.

We are grateful that some friends will be travelling to Kenya in October for seva, to coincide with Alvin's month-long stay there. Most of them will spend about 10 days, during which they would embark on a variety of interesting seva projects in CGH for about a week followed by a 2-3 day safari tour to take in the majestic Out-of-Africa savanna scenes and sighting of wildelife in the Masai Mara Game Reserve.

So what exactly do we plan to do in 2012?

Alvin's seva:

1. To further develop all the self-help income-generation projects that we started with Moses in CGH in 2011.
2. To enhance the child sponsorship system to improve donor relationship management, updating of children's development to sponsors, financial transparency, etc.
3. To evolve a solid and transparent support structure amongst CGH, AOL Kenya and us. We see our role as individual volunteers as social catalysts.
4. To provide social enterpreneurship training to the staff, teachers and children of CGH.
5. To enjoy being back in the company of the wonderful people in CGH.

Some Volunteers' seva projects:

• Photography - award winning photographer Lim Kok Wee is calling for donation of digital cameras and he'll teach a selected group of children and teachers how to shoot great pictures. He plans to hold a unique photo exhibition before Christmas to showcase his and his African apprentices' photo to raise fund for CGH.
• Write-n-Tell - Ronald plans to hold a writing workshop to coach children to write about their life in the slum and CGH, about their dreams and aspirations.
• Music Making with Recorders - Jermain Lew is calling for donation of old recorders that most of us and our children used briefly in school music lessons. She will hand-carry donated recorders to CGH and teach the children how to make music on their own.

We shall update this website as our plan gets shaped up. We welcome your support, sponsorship of children or any form of assistance. Thank you in advance.

Alvin Yong
August 2012