Mercy Relief kickstarts the MOVEment!
January 25, 2010
posted by Dian Melati on ExpeditionSg yahoogroups on Jan 22, 2010
Mercy Overseas Volunteer Expeditions (MOVE) was set up in order to
provide an activeplatform for individuals to exercise a spirit of active
global citizenry via engaging in programmes which complement Mercy
Relief’s ongoing overseas community development projects.
While Mercy Relief has established its standing as a humanitarian
charity in response to the human tragedies in Asia, it also carries out
longer-term development projects to uplift the lives of impoverished and
disadvantaged communities around Asia. Mercy Relief is currently
implementing 14 non-crisis poverty-reduction and disaster risk
mitigation projects in China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam
focusing on our core areas of water & sanitation, shelter, sustainable
livelihood, education and healthcare.
At Mercy Relief, we have always believed that the way forward in
developing the humanitarian sector isthrough exposing and educating the
community. Outgoing teams will carry out programmes within our project
locations, stemming from our five core areas above. With the objective
of rendering meaningful service to supplement as the `soft ware’
component to our `hard ware’ humanitarian work, MOVE thus
provides the beneficiaries with a holistic form of aid.
Comprising two primary platforms for volunteer deployments – Mercy
Expeditions (MX) and Mercy Youth (MY) – MOVE personifies our vision
of a more structured conduit for volunteers to develop themselves as
regional humanitarians.
MX: Mercy Expeditions allows working adults and volunteers in general to
develop their own potential and a chance to experience other cultures
and understand some of the socio-economic issues affecting our
neighbouring nations. For employees going under the banner of their
organizations, the programme aims to develop their sense of global
competence and leadership, and enrich their personal and professional
lives through CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities.
MY: Mercy Youth is open to young adults and full-time students who wish
to engage in a pro-active sense of experiential learning and make active
social contributions both at home and abroad. This includes participants
between the age of 15 to 35 who are embarking on NYC’s Youth
Expedition Programme (YEP) under the partnership between NYC and Mercy
Relief.
To drive this MOVEment forward will be the slogan It’s good to feel bad
. In humanitarian service, feeling bad is good as it makes us feel that
we could and should be doing more for the less fortunate. This is an
important mentality which should reach deep into the psyche of every
volunteer, and that is precisely what we strive to inculcate amongst our
returning overseas volunteers.
Returning volunteers will be automatically integrated into the MOVE
Network, for continued engagement and development in promoting an active
volunteering spirit and a civic life of compassion, care and
volunteerism amongst Man. Members of the network will be known as
MOVERs.
It’s a simple formula,really. MX + MY = MOVE
For more information on MOVE or to sign up your team, please email
move@mercyrelief.org
Priority will be given to ex-YEP leaders who have already formed a team
and are planning to lead an expedition within this year.
Volunteers return from quake-hit Haiti
January 25, 2010
By Dylan Loh for Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 24 January 2010 1814 hrs
SINGAPORE: Five volunteers of an eight-member CityCare team sent to quake-hit Haiti returned home on Sunday.
The eight members were the first team the social enterprise group sent to Haiti to help the quake survivors.
More helpers will join the rest of the team in Haiti in the coming weeks.
Volunteers described the disaster zone as a big slum, with people sleeping on streets alongside rats and cockroaches.
And the medical facilities there were ill-equipped to treat severely injured people such as a woman they treated, whose upper body had been trapped in the rubble.
Dr Tan Hun Hoe, a CityCare volunteer, said: “To see her face all smashed up and swollen up and, you know, disfigured, with wounds and with maggots crawling out. I think that’s quite a sight that we will never forget and it’s something to, perhaps, remind people how severe the injuries can be.”
- CNA/ir
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