It is with mixed feelings that we announce the departure of Ms Lee Siow Ling and Ms Natasha De Silva effective 1 Jan 2022. It is always sad to lose a dedicated, hardworking, and regular top performer. Our only consolation is that they are comfortable with their decision and deem it as a step forward in their career.
Both Ling and Nat has contributed a lot to the success of this organization. Nat is one of the first few Vision Teachers and Ling is one of our pioneer batches of admin staff. We acknowledge their efforts and thank them for their unconditional commitment and dedication throughout the years.
We would like to wish both Ling and Nat the best of success in future challenges and endeavours.

Five students from iC2 PrepHouse were treated to an exciting Lego WeDo Workshop for Beginners on 18 Dec at Tech Able.

The very engaging instructor and facilitators from Curious Squirrel patiently guided our students on how to make a security robot that senses intruders and gives out a customised alarm – sirens, wails, verbal threats to call the police, and funny gibberish to throw the intruders off!

The second project, the space rover, captivated the children’s attention, as they programmed their robots to move, stop, and send audio signals.

By the end of the two-hour session, all the children were asking for more sessions.

iC2 PrepHouse, the students and parents would like to thank Airbus, Tech Able and Curious Squirrel for making this fun and educational experience possible.

On a Saturday morning on 11 December 2021, 6 iC2 PrepHouse students and their family members joined Soundball Singapore for a two-hour introductory session to Soundball at Bedok Heartbeat’s tennis courts. Soundball is a game of tennis adapted to the needs of the visually impaired. With the guidance of Soundball Singapore and the arrangement by Sport Singapore under their Sport Cares programme, all participants learnt the basic strokes of holding the racket, throwing the ball, and listening out for it. It was a wonderful workout session and everyone enjoyed themselves thoroughly. They also get to bring home some souvenirs that include a Soundball T-shirt and a lanyard.

Our Executive Director, Ms Jamuna Rani, is honoured to be one of the guest judges for the Design for Social Good (Dsg) Bootcamp run by the School of X. In partnership with a few social service agencies (SSAs) and the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC). The Bootcamp’s objective was to understand better the obstacles that prevent volunteers from creating sustained impacts with NPOs and use a human-centred design lens to develop solutions to tackle this challenge.

School of X is a real-world learning platform that teaches people how to use human-centred design methods and tools to tackle complex challenges their organisations face while working on solving them.

By tackling the challenge of volunteer engagement and management to produce more significant impacts for beneficiaries, participants have learned and applied design thinking skills that have enabled them to devise innovative solutions to a long-running issue.

Here are the summaries of each of the participating NPOs. Feel free to click on the link to know more:

1. Cycling Without Age

Cycling Without Age is a movement started in 2012 by Ole Kassow. Ole wanted to help the elders get back on their bicycles, but he had to find a solution to their limited mobility. The answer was a trishaw, and he started offering free bike rides to the local nursing home residents.

https://cyclingwithoutage.org/about/

1. Catholic Welfare Services

Catholic Welfare Services (CWS) is a non-profit social service organisation founded in 1959 to uplift the lives of the less fortunate in the community.

https://catholicwelfare.org.sg/about-us/

1. Babes Pregnancy Crisis Support

Babes Pregnancy Crisis Support Ltd (Babes) is a non-profit organisation committed to ensuring that every pregnant teenager in need of support be aware of the options she has and is given the opportunity to make an informed decision regarding her pregnancy.

https://www.babes.org.sg/babes-your-friend/about-us/

1. Club Rainbow

We support and empower children with chronic illnesses and their families by providing compassionate, relevant services in their journey towards an enriching life.

https://www.clubrainbow.org/whoweare

1. Metta Welfare Association

We are dedicated to delivering social service programmes for individuals and families by collaborating with our donors, partners, vendors and community organisations.

https://www.metta.org.sg/hq/index.php/about/about-metta/

The judges will provide feedback to the teams and rank the groups according to the following criteria.

Best All-Rounder: which team presented the best overall solution, based on the evaluation criteria below

Most Innovative: which team presented the most creative, fresh approach to tackling their challenge

After much deliberation by the expert panel, the Best All Rounder and Most Innovative Organisation results are finally out. Congratulations to the following organisations.

Best All-Rounder: Catholic Welfare services

Most Innovative: Cycling without Age

Another category of winners is not decided by the expert panels but instead, an audience vote. Congratulations to Babes Pregnancy Crisis Support for winning the “Most Lovable” team award!

Once again, Congratulations to all winning organisations!

We were pleased to receive a donation from NTUC FairPrice Foundation Ltd of $50,000 to support our “iC2 Celebrates Our Founding Father of Singapore” campaign. Our Executive Director, Ms Jamuna Rani, is happy to present the Founding Father of Singapore – Mr Lee Kuan Yew endorsed limited edition Villeroy & Boch plate to NTUC FairPrice Foundation’s representative, Ms Ellyn Lim. iC2 PrepHouse helps parents and families cope with the changing needs of children with visual impairments through structured educational and rehabilitative programmes enabling visually impaired individuals to live confidently and enrich their lives and their families. This donation would help subsidise programme fees for 25 students for one year.

iC2 had its first virtual team building on 30 Nov 2021, conducted by Jambar Team Building.

The mission was to complete the challenges in each location to obtain a code to move to the next country in the “amazing race” challenge. Every challenge was different, and it could be physical, mental or cultural. The team will have to work together to overcome the obstacles and move to the next location.

The team had an enjoyable time working and taking fun pictures for memories.

The iC2 team would like to thank the Jambar Team Building facilitators for the funfilled team building.