National Day Parade 2021 - My Volunteering Experience

I came back to NDP for yet another time of in-person volunteering during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Ever since I started my volunteering journey back in 2016, I’ve always stuck to skill-based volunteer roles, specifically anything media related because that was where I was most comfortable in. I thought it would be a good idea to try something new this year, so I went for the Volunteer Leader role instead of the Media Volunteer role. Besides the scope, the experience was indeed new and different in many aspects. I did volunteer in 2020 as well, and we started shortly after circuit breaker measures in Singapore ended. However, my volunteering experience in 2021 was nothing like the one I had last year. This year, we were going to be back at The Floating Platform, with the same duties as we would have taken on in years prior to the pandemic. Before every deployment, all volunteers involved in the parade would have to undergo an Antigen Rapid Test (ART) 24 hours before every deployment. In our own words, we called this the D-1 Swab. As safety measures of this period only permitted us to gather in groups of 5, it was common for us to go straight for dinner with our friends or sector-mates after our Friday swab. Although there were many restrictions on social gatherings and most of our volunteer trainings were held over Zoom, I was fortunate enough to find myself in a close-knit team of VLs, each one empowered to ensure everyone in our sector and beyond enjoyed their volunteering experience, despite all the restrictions. Nobody was willing to let the virus take precedence over our journey, not especially after going through weekly swabs and spending long hours over Zoom in preparations for deployments. Beyond the official trainings, my sector went as far as to organize informal zoom game nights and hangout sessions with our volunteers, and we’d catch up with one another online nearly every week. We even had a cross-sector countdown with everyone on the night of 9 August.

I guess taking on a different role reminded me of how enjoyable volunteering for events can be, and it doesn’t always have to be about the work and the outcome. To be honest, I remember being so focused on getting stories out as a media volunteer to encourage and inspire others throughout their volunteering journey.

Of course, I did love the work and creative freedom the role had to offer me back then. However, I guess it came to a point where I wanted to experience what it was like working a different scope on the ground.

As a new VL, I found so many more opportunities to connect and interact with people, learned new things about myself, became more confident as a person and most importantly, I’ve learnt how to enjoy the bumpy ride of an NDP journey and prioritize the mental well-being of others as well as myself, rather than the results and expectations of us as volunteers. That, to me, is my biggest takeaway from the entire experience.