Final-year NUS Medicine student Alvona Loh’s story about national servicemen of different cultures and countries bonding over extraordinarily common life experiences was made into a film titled B.M.T (Beijing, Mumbai, Tampines) by Singaporean film director Kelvin Tong. Alvona’s essay beat over 1,200 entries in the call for stories under Project Lapis Sagu, an initiative by the Ministry of Communications and Information to spark open conversations on cultural diversity and social integration in Singapore. B.M.T (Beijing, Mumbai, Tampines) is part of a longer film anthology titled Together Apart, which consists of other winning stories from the public.
“One of the main reasons I joined Project Lapis Sagu was my deep passion for multiculturalism and multilingualism. Born and bred in Singapore, I have always had an appreciation of the cultural diversity here,” Alvona said. Besides attending school, she also devotes her time as a student correspondent at Lianhe Zaobao zbNOW.
