YMCA SCC students turn entrepreneurs at Ki-bies carnival
Sengkang South turned into a youthful marketplace for a few hours on 24 March 2018 with YMCA Student Care Centres’ students hawking colourful handcrafted goods. This is the first time all 20 student care centres have come together for the Sengkang South Little Entrepreneurs 2018. Organised by Central Singapore CDC, Citizens’ Consultative Committees, People’s Association and Sengkang South RC, the event saw students as young as six run their own business.
At booths allocated to them, students from each student care centre made their own unique items for sale, which included bookmarks, pen holders and decorative pieces such as water globes to the theme of “Fairy Tales”. This year, the students were encouraged to add services to the list of items, where some centres conducted games and provided a mobile photo booth service. To generate sales, students had to come up with unique marketing strategies to engage residents and the public.
YMCA SCC @ St. Margaret’s student Annabelle Wong was one of 135 students who ran booths at Saturday’s event. In spite of the crowds and heat, the enthusiastic twelve-year old ran around asking people to take photos at her photo booth. “It’s super fun to be able to make things and sell them, because we get to be creative.” Besides participating in the carnival, students from YMCA SCC @ Oasis and YMCA SCC @ Sengkang Green also put up a dance and musical performance respectively. The YMCA STARS were also invited to put up an energetic dance to the tune of Katy Perry’s “Fireworks”.
YMCA SCC @ Canberra staff member Priya said she was glad to be able to contribute despite having to motivate her students, and constantly cajole customers to step up to her booth, where people can throw balls through cutout holes for prizes.
“I feel it is a good thing that we are doing! The funds we receive will be donated to the organisations which need support,” explained Priya, adding that she gave her students some tips on how to attract more customers.
“I try to motivate them (my students) so they can give their best shot. I also told my students to always ‘GST’, Greet, Smile and Thank! These are three golden words. Some of the students are tired, but they really try very hard! I don’t know if they are ‘Super Salesmen’ yet, but it (the cash coupon box) is filling up!”
“We were asked to help other schools because they don’t have enough students here. It wasn’t really difficult to sell today. We enjoyed ourselves!” said Javier during their dinner break. The trio added that getting to meet the Prime Minister would be the highlight of their evening.
As part of the Ki-bies Carnival, the bazaar aimed to inculcate in students the values of compassion, genuine concern for the less-privileged whilst cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset and a sense of teamwork. All proceeds from the Sengkang South Little Entrepreneurs Bazaar 2018 will go towards purchasing Popular Bookstore vouchers for distribution to less privileged students in YMCA’s partnering schools.