COVID-19 has affected businesses and social enterprises in one way or another. Soap Cycling Singapore was not spared and corporate activities had to be cancelled just before and during the Circuit Breaker.
So we were stoked when the Taylor & Francis Group first reached out to us about the possibility of having an in-person corporate volunteering session once Circuit Breaker measures eased. After a few rounds of discussion with Yvonne Goh, a marketing executive with the publishing firm, we finally conducted our first in-person workshop (make that two) in months over two Wednesdays with 15 staff members.
We kicked off each session with stories about how the soap recycling movement started and the work that the Singapore chapter has been doing. We also shared how our work benefits the migrant worker community in Singapore and the region.
The participants tried their hand at soap scraping, and for most of them, this was their first time reprocessing soap by a simple and basic method. The teams were very focused on the task at hand, and Barry Clarke, the managing director upped the fun quotient by turning it into a mini-competition and getting his team to scrape faster to exceed the weight of soap scraped by the first team.
Said Yvonne Goh: “It was an eye-opening session, seeing how we can actually save soap from being wasted – giving soaps from those who waste them to those who need them. And I also felt heartened that my colleagues were willing to come together to do the soap scraping, enjoying the session, and even wanting the session to be longer.” ~ Shawn Tham
Shawn is currently an intern with SCSG. He’s a Year 3 Tourism and Resort Management Student at Ngee Ann Polytechnic.