Lighting Up Lives through Candle-making!

Finally we pulled off the first candle-making workshop with ladies identified through Bukit Ho Swee Family Service Centre and Beyond Social Services! Not without a lot of sweat, some panic moments, and gearing up to handle contingencies. 

Somehow, the attrition rate of participants is really high, so 12 people may have signed up, but on the actual day, only 6 will show up. Imagine having to cater logistics for a "rubber band turn-out" event, not the easiest thing.  Along the way, we had hits and misses and important lessons as well as brow-wiping experiences to bond our volunteers and the team, which is myself and Whelan our part-timer, haha. 

What do you do when an event you've been planning for months almost doesn't happen due to a tiny breakdown in communication, and you've got a roomful of volunteers waiting and looking at you with expectant eyes?

Step 1: Panic

Step 2: Curse under your breath and pray to God in the same second.

Step 3: Ask yourself "So, what's the best thing we can do now from the situation?"

Step 4: Take a deep breath, step back in the room.

Step 5: Explain the situation, have faith in people's goodwill.

Step 6: Make the best of it and create a Train the Trainers session!

Thank you Jagdeep Kaur, Whelan Liew, Christie Khoo, Inez Chan, Angeline Ng and ladies from Reed Elsevier for being such good sports about it!

Instead of an "organizer-participants" situation with parties expecting to be pleased, it felt like we were a team making the best out of a near disaster situation. It's great to have that kind of support :)

That sums out our inaugural candle-making workshop saga. Luckily we managed to organize another session within the next few days for the actual beneficiaries! 

Here are some pictures for the workshops - both the impromptu  "Train the Trainer" session and the workshop held for 6 beneficiary ladies from the Lengkok Bahru, Whampoa areas. 

Next up, production briefing! - We've identified 2 ladies from the workshop to commence their employment with DOT to produce the Deepavali candles! One of them is a single mother struggling to cope financially with 4 kids, and another has 3 kids with a household income of $900/month. Hope that our Deepavali candles sell well with good corporate orders so that we can continue to employ them for this work! 

PS. Candle designs for Christmas will be available in October too! Do consider getting your Christmas candles for us and look out for updates!

Do help us to spread the word!!