Building homes at 14

A partnership with Project Zero To Hero

In this era, lending a helping hand to others is seen as a rare gesture. There are plenty of reasons why most of us do not volunteer. Some of the reasons include,

• Not getting anything in return
• Don’t benefit easily  
• Lack of free time
• Feel that our efforts are not being appreciated
• Shy/awkward/out of place because they’re the only one who wants to do it and it feels as if they’re the only ones trying to make a difference
• Find it uncool

And many more..

However, Iffah Yasmin Bte Abdullah, 19, a year two student from Diploma in Mass Communication began volunteering journey as young as 10 years old. Her parents who instilled such values in her has made want to continue to do good. It started out with helping out at the orphanage and old folks home, followed by joining 4PM, a Malay Youth Literary Association, in an event called Ramadan on Wheels which she takes part annually. And she finally made a move to join UNICEF when she was 14. According to her, UNICEF focuses on the less fortunate kids, ranging from orphans to those have been abused by their family.

Photo Credit: Iffah Yasmin

Iffah shares her experience when she was with UNICEF, " I participated in 2 of UNICEF’s project to help out the children in Tanzania. We helped them by building a school and put together a little show for them just for entertainment. We also went to Cambodia to build a school, a community hall and teach them basic English. UNICEF has a vision to support child rights and I believe that their efforts to raise this awareness around the world is recommendable."

Her volunteering spirit has inspired her friends to join her in this volunteering journey and "it was a very satisfying feeling to know that just by doing so little, i can inspire others around me to join me to do good".

Photo Credit: Iffah Yasmin

Iffah is one of those inspiring people with a kind heart. We hope with this story, you would be inspired to do good. Maybe not in helping kids but maybe animals or your community.

Just by building a roof above their head, you can make someone happy. There are many organizations that you can sign up with. You can either sign up with Sg Cares, Red Cross, Volunteer Singapore or 4PM. For animal lovers, sign up at SPCA.

Go make someone smile this weekend!

Republic Polytechnic’s Annual Open House

This year, RP has a whole new approach in organizing their 2014 Open House.

Unlike the usual performances, giving out free goodies, selling of different courses, as well as to give hyping up the crowd with the student’s enthusiasms, this time there was more.

Beauty and fashion products were one of the main attractions for the 3 day event. Volunteers from The Body Shop, Sally Hansen, as well as Teenage Magazine were all lined up at the entrance of Republic Polytechnic, providing free make overs for both visitors and students.

In addition to that, not only were there performance done by the Republic Poly’s students, this time round, students from the Platinum Vocal Student had also made quite an appearance at the front stage, pulling off a splendid performance which gathered much crowd.

Editor's note + Collaborations

Photo Credit: Funny 2014

HAPPY 2014!!! *pops champagne*

We know that it's already the 15th day of 2014 but we hope it's not too late to wish our readers a HAPPY NEW YEAR! We hope this year is full of magic and you'll be blessed all year round and enjoy this year, just like we all did back in 2013.

2013 was a memorable year for most of us at Weekend Ventures. Our writers went through the ups & downs of life and we found out about our internship posting. We had fun, we cried and laugh in 2013.

Last year, we had animal-cruelty awareness week where it was an especially important week for our writer, Fateha Sulaiman, who felt really strongly on the animal cruelty happening around the world for beauty, fashion and movies. We hope we have shed a bit of light on what goes on behind the scenes of the beauty, fashion and movie industry and how you can play your part for the innocent animals to end their sufferings.

So this year, we promise to bring you more exciting reads. We'll do our best to find you things to do to fulfill your weekends so your weekends will never have a dull moment. We look forward to 2014 to bring you even more joy.

Good news for you, Weekend Ventures will be partnering with other great blogs such as Project Zero to Hero and Duh Friday Club to bring you even more juiciest deets from fashion to how you can make the world a better place, or both. Weekend Ventures are always open to making the world a better place for everyone through our blog.

Look out for our collab post with the above mentioned blog.

Happy New Year!!

Much love,

The WeekendVenturers

Special edition: RP is the place to be

This post is dedicated just for our lovely young readers!

The O-level results have just been released and we hope that it has brought you guys tears of joy. Now, the big question, "Which route should I take?" JC, polytechnic or ITE? We'll recommend you the one place to be- Republic Polytechnic!

Come and follow our fellow, weekend venturer, Sharmeet, to see what a typical RP student  does on a typical day! Let's see...