Events

Charity Transparency and Governance Awards 2018

Away from the bustling city and nestled in the humble surroundings of nature in Gardens by the Bay was where the 6th annual Charity Governance Award (CGA) organised by the Charity Council happened this year. The event brings charity organisations from all walks together on this beautiful evening to recognise the exemplary governance practices demonstrated by the organisations and acknowledge their efforts to maintain transparency.  

We are proud to share that Club Rainbow (Singapore) has won the Charity Governance Award 2018 (Medium Category) and the Charity Transparency Award 2018. Our President, Dr Sashikumar Ganapathy, received the Charity Governance Award from the Guest-of-honor, Ms. Grace Fu, Minister for Culture, Community & Youth, at the CGA ceremony last evening.

The awards recognise Club Rainbow for adopting the highest standards of governance, in line with the Code of Governance for charities and IPC, and for displaying good disclosure practices as recommended by the Charity Transparency Framework (CTF).

 

“Our beneficiaries start their journey with us from as young as a newborn, all the way up to age 20. On this long journey, while we aim to provide the best programmes and services to empower and help them live their best possible lives, it is only through organisation-wide concerted efforts to uphold good governance and strategic initiatives that we are able to continue to carry out our purpose for our beneficiaries with chronic illnesses. Every member of our team is aware of our ultimate goal for our beneficiaries and actively contributes to our on-going efforts to ensure we continue to deliver the best for them.”

Dr Sashikumar Ganapathy

President

 

Also representing Club Rainbow (Singapore) at the Awards ceremony were Mr Gregory Vijayendran (member of Advisory Board), Mr Eric Teo (Vice-President), Mr Allen Zheng (Honorary Treasurer), Miss Jennifer Kok (Deputy Executive Director) and Mr Teo Siang Loong (Deputy Executive Director).

Dr Sashikumar humbly shared that over the years Club Rainbow has stepped up its efforts in its pursuit of governance excellence by being in line with the Code of Governance for charities and IPC as well as maintaining good disclosure practices according to the Charity Transparency Framework (CTF). Some of the key areas for disclosure are Board and Executive Management, Strategic Direction and Programme Management, HR Management, Management of Conflict of Interest, Financial Management and Internal Controls, Conduct of Fundraising Activities, Auditor’s Report, and Timeliness of Disclosure.

Taking this opportunity, both the Council and Dr Sashikumar give their grateful thanks to everyone in the team for rising above the challenges and playing a role in clinching these two prestigious awards this year.

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About Charity Governance Awards

The annual Charity Governance Awards (CGA), first launched by the Charity Council, is in its 6th year now and recognises charities that have adopted the highest standards of governance, in line with the Code of Governance for charities and IPCs. The CGA aims to promote good governance in the charity sector by acknowledging the excellent work of charities while inspiring others to emulate their best practices. Similarly, the Charity Transparency Awards (CTA) recognises charities with good disclosure practices that the Charity Transparency Framework (CTF) recommends. Some key dimensions highlighted as key areas for disclosure are Board and Executive Management, Strategic Direction and Programme Management, HR Management, Management of Conflict of Interest, Financial Management and Internal Controls, Conduct of Fundraising Activities, Auditor’s Report, and Timeliness of Disclosure.

A year of rainbows for our little ones with Micron Foundation

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As part of their Diversity and Inclusion efforts, Micron Foundation has adopted Club Rainbow (Singapore) [CRS] as one of the charity organisations to give back to community this year.  

An alignment in vision between Micron Foundation and CRS on enriching the community sees Micron supporting our mission of empowering families with children having chronic illnesses and special needs, to provide them an enriched and quality life. Teaming up with CRS Community Partnership, Micron was able to reach out to majority of our beneficiaries through the various events such as Celebrating Heroes in September and third edition of the upcoming Dreamseeds Arts Fest in November by offering many volunteer hands, warm hearts and big smiles.    

This year also marks the 40th anniversary of Micron Technology Inc., where hundreds of employees were invited to enjoy a night of celebration with the company in Sentosa. As employees filled up the foyer outside of the ballroom, they were invited to pen their well wishes for the company on pieces of coloured papers. These were then used to form a rainbow, inspired and in recognition of us, Club Rainbow (Singapore) their adopted charity, along with a donation drive.

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One other activity of Micron’s anniversary celebration was extending invitations to 42 of our beneficiaries and their families to enjoy an evening at the Universal Studios with them.

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We are very grateful and blessed to have Micron partnering with us, in choosing to support our little ones. Their valuable contributions to our organisation through volunteering efforts and monetary donation truly helped in many ways. 

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Happy Birthday, Club Rainbow (Singapore)!

This month, we celebrate our birthday and reflect on how far we come to be and couldn’t have been possible without the generous and kind donations from corporate and individual donors who have been supporting our cause for many years and more to come…

How to celebrate Club Rainbow’s birthday?


How did Club Rainbow (Singapore) came about?

Set up in 1992, Club Rainbow (Singapore) [CRS] is a non-profit organisation with a mission to provide compassionate relevant services to the families of children who suffer from a range of major chronic and potentially life-threatening illnesses.

Children in Club Rainbow range from new-born to youths up to the age of 20. Many of them require frequent hospital visits for treatment, complicated therapy and long-term medication. Club Rainbow works closely with KK Women’s & Children’s Hospital (KKH), National University Hospital (NUH) and the neonatal unit of Singapore General Hospital (SGH). On the recommendation of doctors, the children are referred to Club Rainbow for critical follow-up support.

Armed with the vision to be the leading service provider that meets the needs of these children and their families, Club Rainbow adopts a holistic approach to help our beneficiaries in 5 core aspects:

Financial Support

Emotional Support

Educational Assistance

Social Integration

Informational Resources

 We offer a variety of free support services to our beneficiaries in each core aspect, some of which include home and hospital counselling, tuition services, social integration programmes, bursary awards and educational seminars.


DSAF Sneak Peek

Marked your calendar?

Registered for the various workshops?


Fast forward to the week of Dreamseeds Art Fest 2018, visitors could attend and immerse themselves in the realm of Arts through the line up of creative workshops available such as Baby Beat, Paper Marbling, Immersive Storytelling, etc.  

So what are you waiting for?

A peek into the activities happening during the week…

Event Review : Celebrating Heroes

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Children scrambling for a seat and parents settling down in the hall, what better way to end the beautiful closed-door event of Celebrating Heroes (CH), than with the Disney movie – Moana.

This year’s installment of CH held at Enabling Village, an integrated, all-accessible community space, welcomed beneficiaries and their families, volunteers, Council members and staff coming together to recognise and salute the 7 tireless caregivers and siblings for their unfaltering energy and determination with their loved ones on the journey of chronic illnesses and special needs.

Overcast with showers in the early morning which subsided slightly past 9 am, a sigh of relief superseded with excitement as it was just in time for the team to complete the final set up of the event site and to prepare for the commencement of the celebration of our beneficiaries’ (super) heroes in their lives.

Eric Teo (CRS Council Member) on the left, Teo Siang Loong (Executive Director, Programmes Development) and Amit Malik (Sub-Committee Member) on the right joining in the fun stretching.

To kick-start the event, the audiences were called to stand and join in some morning stretches, relaxing their muscles and warming themselves slightly in the cool weather. After introductions done by the emcee, all recipients of the Exemplary Caregiver Award (ECA) were invited up on stage for the sharing session, where we had the pleasure of having Miss Annette Chua who was an award winner from CH2017 to participate in the forum as a moderator and contributor.

The awardees and Annette were able to exchange their experiences as caregivers with the audience who benefited from the sharing. Catching up with Annette after the event, she expressed “I feel very inspired by this year’s winners as they have gone beyond the boundaries as a caregiver to give their time and energy in taking care of a person who is of no relation to them. It’s just amazing how big their hearts are. It’s truly an act of big love!”

Annette also pointed out that apart from the challenges faced by caregivers, beneficiaries and their families, they do need to feel as part of the community too. She calls for the public to come together as supportive and inclusive oneness.

For this year, we have added a new award category - Exemplary Sibling Award (ESA) to recognise the siblings who also played an important role in our beneficiaries’ everyday life.

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“It is particularly heartening to see some of the awardees, who are children of Club Rainbow (Singapore) themselves, displayed the unwavering spirit and perseverance to care for their siblings. They are our real-life superheroes who should be a motivation to all.”

Teo Siang Loong, Deputy Executive Director/Head of Programmes Department

Being a beneficiary of CRS himself did not stop Muhammad Saifullah Bin Ghazali from stepping up as a responsible elder brother to his sibling who was affected by a neurological disorder. Apart from clinching the ESA, he was also awarded the Admirable Award for his strength and determination.

We need….
4 hugs a day for survival, 8 hugs for maintenance and 12 hugs a day for growth

Our own little way of giving hugs to the caregivers and siblings is by dedicating this day of celebration to them, sharing their stories, spreading their positivity and strength to all out there who are feeling despondent and in challenging situations; letting them know that ‘You Never Were Alone’.  

Whilst caregivers were having a respite break, sitting back and enjoying the immersive sharing session, picking up useful tips along the way, a collaboration with NTU Operation Hope saw a room setup with various inclusive game stations like Stick-Tac-Toe, Where’s my match?, Test your strength, Bin the bag, Super Launcher, Matric Maze for the beneficiaries.

Besides these game stations, children were also seen bouncing away happily on the bouncy castle and having their go at the outdoor sport games, some of the many fringe activities that brought smiles and laughter to faces of the little ones and those young at hearts.

A couple of CRS partners like Shatec, Speech Academy and Karate had booths to present their programmes, services and trial lessons by Karate.

Looking back on the last CH event, we saw the number of families coming forward doubled at this year’s CH. According to Programmes Development (PD), out of a total of 570 attendees, 105 were our beneficiaries, accompanied by 310 other family members as compared to 82 beneficiaries and 158 family members from CH 2017. Organisers of the event, both Khloe Lee and Tay Zhizhong from PD were happy that the event went as planned and shared their sentiments, ‘This year’s event ended with the highest turnout of beneficiaries ever recorded for a Celebrating Heroes event. We had a total of 105 beneficiaries who attended the event this year. Overall, parents were satisfied with the activities that were provided for them and the kids’ said Zhizhong and with Khloe adding on, ‘It was nice to see the families gather together and enjoying the activities planned for them. The stories of our award winners are also inspiring and refreshingly positive.’

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In ensuring there were ample serving hands for the event, we had a pool of committed volunteers, many from Micron, NUS, NTU, and SMF came forward as befrienders and to help out in various areas. As the saying goes, ‘Many hands make work light’, thus, we like to take this opportunity to extend our thanks to all who took time from their other priorities to support and celebrate the event with us.

Some of the many happy faces captured during the event!

Do check out CRS website, Facebook or Instagram for the write ups and videos on the inspiring journeys of our 2018 ECA and ESA winners.