Magnificent Clean Water: Squeezing Lemonades For Clean Water!

From 11 - 15th November 2019, Matthew Cheung from St. Joseph's Institution International set up a lemonade stall together with his classmates to raise awareness and funds to bring clean water to vulnerable communities supported by World Vision. Matthew's conviction stemmed from his realisation that children in other parts of the world had to walk for hours to obtain water, which might not even be clean enough to drink. He shares his advocacy journey and his experience setting up the "Magnificent Clean Water" campaign in school: 

I first learnt about World Vision in 2018, when I organised a charity garage sale with a group of schoolmates in Grade 5. I researched and found World Vision to donate to. World Vision is an international charity organization that helps people across the world, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender. Its vision of bringing fullness of life to the world’s most vulnerable children, made me think of other children who are not as lucky as us, especially those with no clean water supply in their communities. 

When I researched for my service project, I realised many people don’t have clean water for their daily needs, while we can just turn on the tap with clean water pouring out. I find this really unfair, as some people need to walk a round trip of six kilometers to get contaminated water. This is why I decided to take action, and to help raise money for clean water for everybody. 

At the very beginning, I realised that many people didn’t have access to clean water supply. It was then when I had the idea to raise money for clean water, and decided to donate to World Vision. During my September break, I outlined my idea and action plan for my teacher’s approval. After my teacher approved it, I set up a campaign called Magnificent Clean Water on the World Vision Singapore website in October. I started to promote this campaign to my family and friends.

Getting ready to make lemonade!

At the same time, I prepared a speech to raise awareness of the need for clean water, promote my campaign, and to ask my school community to support my lemonade stall. I gave my speech during the school assembly on the 8th of November. In the following week, I ran a lemonade stall with four classmates during school break time from Monday to Friday. Selling lemonade at $2, we raised $408, and with other donations, the total amount raised was $1051. I gave a report on my project on the 12th of December during assembly.

Students visiting our lemonade stand and purchasing drinks to donate!

I found running the lemonade stall the most enjoyable part, seeing many students enjoying the lemonade we made as well. By doing this service project,  I earned valuable experiences in giving a speech and organising an event. I also learnt to have better time management, to plan everything well in advance.

My friends and I getting ready to sell lemonade!

From the treasured experience organising a service project, I learnt that many children are very unfortunate, living in poverty, in underprivileged living conditions. This service project has changed my mindset, and I am now more aware of how lucky we are and the need to help others who are less fortunate.

In the future, I hope to participate more in charity events, and try running other service projects to support the needs of vulnerable communities for a better world and a fruitful life.