Project Barrios
Helping homes away from home
The Project Barrios team consists of nursing students from the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies (NUS Nursing), Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. Project Barrios was initially conceived as a nursing house project by students from the Kings house. In recent years, the project has been expanded to include all nursing students from NUS Nursing.
Project Barrios consists of service extensions to the internal community and local initiatives. In addition to serving the local community, Project Barrios also serves the international community.
As part of our Overseas Community Involvement Projects [CIP] Initiative, we provide mobile clinics and health education to the citizens of Iloilo. Through the Youth Expedition Project (YEP), they conduct healthcare and community projects in Iloilo, Philippines. The goal is to provide warmth and care to the residents of Iloilo while focusing on healthcare education topics and health promotion initiatives. Our Overseas CIP project is a student-initiated partnership that is developed in partnership with the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA).
The students also worked with Beyond Social Services to provide fun and games to children from less privileged backgrounds in Iloilo. The children learned how to take care of their physical and mental health through station games, which were crucial during their growing up years. The children also learned how to brush their teeth thoroughly, create healthy meal plans, have a regular exercise routine, and even how to take care of their eyes. As part of mental health education, children were also taught how to understand their emotions, encourage one another, and be kind to one another.
For our Local CIP initiative, we worked to assist the local aging community. By providing health activities and informative discussions, we strive to promote the wellbeing and happiness of the elderly. To serve the local community, the students embarked on an initiative at the elderly segment in Singapore.
Together with the Healthcare Promotion @NTUC Health the students organized a series of activities across Singapore over two days. They put together a series of interactive health talks on mental health and on the ‘three highs’, which were high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. As a means of promoting physical health, the students taught the elderly simple exercises which they could perform at home to improve their mobility. Additionally, to help with seniors mental health, the students created terrariums with the elderly and created sand art to stimulate their cognitive function. The students also set up booths to guide the seniors to learn how to navigate health applications on their digital devices.
Through Project Barrio we aim to embody the family spirit of helping and befriending our beneficiaries in their own homes.
For more information about Project Barrio, please visit https://www.instagram.com/projectbarrios_/?hl=en
Telegram Channel: https://t.me/+6iGr8792MUlkZWZl
List of Overseas Projects
I had a fulfilling time working with the committee to plan and execute the programmes, which ultimately led me to continue my journey with Barrios this AY 2022/2023 as Vice President. My first experience of leading a logistics team without prior experience was challenging, but the team was supportive and frequently checked in with me. We would meet bi-weekly via Zoom to update our progress with each other. I cherish this time in my university life to this day as it was truly my best time. The moment I enjoyed the most was when we had to collect sponsored items and we did not anticipate that there would be 3,000 worth of items. That meant 10 heavy cartons to carry! And then there were 3 more sponsor venues to visit. Thus, we decided to rent a vehicle to transport the items. We moved everything into that poor quality rented vehicle in the midst of a torrential downpour. It was only through the grace of God that we were able to move our logistics to school intact. As a result of the team spirit and determination and the refusal to complain that we were able to successfully complete all 3 missions. It was truly wonderful to see the smiles of migrant workers, children, and the elderly.
-Yong Jie Ning Nicole, Head of Logistics 2021/2022
