Best Resident Award: To Be The Best You Can Be

“I didn’t expect it.”
“I was excited.”
“I felt good about it.”

These were some of the reactions of SHELTER One’s winners of the inaugural “Best Resident Award”. They were Dave*, Hon*, Mish* and Beng*.

Introduced for the first time in December 2004, the primary objective of the award was to motivate the children and young people of SHELTER homes to always aim to do their best and be the best they can be. Various criteria were considered such as: performance in school, behaviour and leadership qualities.

“The award is as much as about recognizing and rewarding effort, as it is about achieving good results.” emphasized Lee Hong Jin, Seniour manager of SHELTER.

According to him, all the present winners have come a long way from where they were when they first arrived at SHELTER some years ago. For example, Dave has demonstrated a lot of effort in improving himself and did himself and SHELTER proud by achieving very good results in his UPSR, with an ‘A’ for English. Hon applied herself to her studies, proving to be quite the ‘star’ pupil, besides being a helpful member of the home. Mish, who did not speak or write English before (two years ago), has now mastered the language convincingly and has also learnt to play the piano. Beng has demonstrated himself to be a reliable, helpful and well-behaved member of the home.

What about the winners? What is the significance of winning the award? All of them felt proud and thrilled about winning, undoubtedly. Aside from that, they echoed each other’s thoughts of how winning served as a positive affirmation of their personal development, of acceptance and of mutual respect.

“The award makes me want to be a good example to others,” said Dave. “I want to try to be better and improve even more,” quipped Hon. “They award is encouraging for me. I learnt how to be a leader from my friend and now I want to show a good example,” reflected Mish.

Looking ahead, it is envisaged that the “Best Resident Award,” which will be given out every six months will give everyone a fair shot at being a winner while spurring everyone to apply themselves fully in both school and home fronts.

*Names have been changed