By Aloysius Sim, a Youth Village volunteer
I am a volunteer for the youth Olympic village in NTU whom,
initially, was very intrigued and impressed with this “global”
event that is to be held in Singapore, but is now utterly
disappointed .
First off, my Institute “**ATEC” volunteered almost
everyone within the institute for this event of course,
with certain legit penalties/disadvantages to our grades
and attendance if we do not.
We started volunteering one or two days after our tests, that
have been modified, crammed, trimmed, drilled into us within the
most impossible and unreasonable duration.
I am in charge of a Hall, whereby consists of 5 Blocks, of a
nearly 300 or possibly more athletes and delegates combined, from
different countries.
I am the supervisor for the hall, and working WITH, not under me
are 1-3 officers a shift, depending on the turn-up and schedule
given to us. A.M and P.M shifts are 8 hours, night shifts are
10hrs.
Gladly, the people I’m working with, god bless them, are
pro-active and efficient, making life less painful for this
duration.
Do let me state clear that WE, the volunteers within the
village ARE working hard, I daresay, mostly not for the
YOG, but for our comrades that are working alongside us, be it the
translators, the caterers, laundry coordinators, event planners,
NTU hall office staffs and housekeeping staffs(do forgive me if I
left anyone out).
I know not of what goes on within the YOG committee, but I DO
KNOW that the Residential Centre manager, Housekeeping manager,
Room allotment
manager and duty-managers to name a few, ARE working at
least 14-16 Hours A DAY, on shift, to keep the
village in order, despite the lack of staff, resources, means and
constraints.
I know that for I speak to them every day, hear them through the
walkie-talkies. See their sweat soaked uniforms as they trudge
through the maze-like NTU to assist us with unreasonable and
unyielding demands from international delegations.
Work force = All volunteers and staff “working” within the
village.
What we face:
1) Many of us till now are still
facing problems with the ez-link cards that are
given out to us that should provide complimentary public
transportation to the Village. Meaning, as of now, some of us are
still paying for our transport. Try going back and forth from Simei
(Cost X 29 trips).
2) Shuttle buses from Boon Lay
interchange, the only means of getting into the village comes in
30min intervals, are single decked, shared by the whole workforce
with the village and sometimes delegates, are ALWAYS filled to the
brim leaving some unable to board during shift changing times. They
have yet to rectify the issue or they might even not be rectifying
the issue, for all we know, they might just be averting their eyes
from it.
3) Internal shuttle services
within the village are no better for they are shared by not only
the workforce and delegations, but the full strength by the
thousands within the village. Bus stops are constantly packed with
people, and do note, they are single-deckers again.
4) Food served for the volunteers,
for an example, 2 vegetable items, 1 meat item, a fruit and drinks
from sponsor, coca-cola. What I had yesterday, Baked carrot sticks,
Baked potatos, 1 piece of dry bland almost unsalted chicken, rice
and a banana. Note the food are portioned and they had on more than
one occasion ran out of food and volunteers sent out for
lunch had to go back to work without food for it took too
long for them to replenish the food. I believe everyone has an idea
of what the athletes have already so I shall not elaborate.
5) The delegates,
representatives of each of their own countries, are mostly
demanding and unwilling to listen to reason. Not that I
blame them for the facilities are indeed limited and “shabby” in
some instances. But not to say all of them are bad, there are also
some delegates of some countries that are understanding and a
pleasure to work with. I have personally experienced and
also heard from staffs of other halls relating events of delegates
hurling vulgarities at them. Some of them will also ignore
our advice or enforcement of the no-smoking rule within the
village. They will also ignore the village rules and put up their
own signs on toilets, corridors.
6) The athletes in their
bulk of numbers will at times make it a point to make fun of or
irritate us for their own fancy. Some of them smoke within
the compounds despite our enforcing of the no-smoking rule within
the village. They will often not heed our advice, for example, of
not sitting on railings and the 2nd and third stories of the
buildings.
7) Some of the workforce staff
that are attached to the delegates, instead of working with us,
will sometimes demand and refute our claims despite providing
proper paper work and explaining proper procedures that are etched
for the benefit for all.
8) Internet via cable is only
available for the Chef De Mission’s room and his officials will
have to head down to the village square business centre or book
meeting rooms within the hall to get it. Athletes are only allowed
internet access within the “TV-Rooms” which is a public area and
privacy is non-existent. Sad thing is that I had on an occasion had
a young athlete pleading with me to find a place whereby he could
use access the internet to have a private conversation with his
family back in his country. I could only advise him to seek his
Chef de Mission to allow him access through his room or request for
a booking for the meeting room.
9) We are given empowerment to use
our own means to provide for our guests and that we did. We come up
with solutions to solve issues, we help the delegations out
manually if we have to, we do some clerical work of them if we can,
some of the nicer delegations in return control and discipline
their athletes to our benefit in return. Now, this, all this,
happened before the opening(I wrote this on the 13th august) And
that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
We do not know everything, but we are trying. We can’t do
everything but we attempt. We shouldn’t bend the rules but we
sometimes do.
Come on, we’re people too. Try asking an average chef to create
a menu degustation, I’m sure he’d be dumbfounded as well.
If you’re not a volunteer, if you had not experienced what
we’re going through, please do not even think about criticizing the
volunteers on how ill-informed we are, how unmotivated we are.
If I were to tell YOU to “volunteer” or face an
impending penalty, I’d love to see how YOU would
react.
EDITORS’ NOTE:
Has your life been turned upside down by the YOG? Please
share your views with us. We assure you that your identity will be
kept strictly CONFIDENTIAL. We will be your UNCENSORED VOICE. We
will publish your letter in FULL with ZERO editing, moderating or
censoring. You do not have to suffer in silence! You have the RIGHT
to speak up as a citizen of this country. Remember: you are a
CITIZEN of Singapore, not a SLAVE of the PAP regime.
Our mailbox has been swarmed by letters from YOG volunteers
for the last few days. Unless you specifically want us to publish
your REAL NAME, we will use a pseudonym instead. Please understand
that due to manpower constraints, we may not be able to publish
your letters immediately and we will have to stagger them a few
hours apart to ensure that they get maximum exposure.
Please keep your feedback coming! Singapore for
SINGAPOREANS! Your interests always come FIRST.
Source: Temasek Review
