Youth Provides Online Tuition to Raise Funds for the Bone Marrow Donor Programme (BMDP)

Posted on 2020-07-27 by Affluence PR in Education, Healthcare // 0 Comments

Singapore, 2020-Jul-27 — /EPR Network/ — While the COVID-19 pandemic may have disrupted the education system from its usual practices, it has not diminished the passion of youths resolving to put their spare time to good use.

Aarushi Menon, a 17-year-old international student in Singapore, started providing free one-on-one virtual tuition in French and Math as a way to pass time after she was informed that the Cambridge IGCSE examination was cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. “I created flyers and posted on social media to advertise my free tuition. In the end, I had 20 different students signing up for either my Math or French online lessons,” she said.

Most of her students learning French were beginners trying to pick up the language during their free time, while students in her Math classes were enrolled by their parents to keep them occupied while they were working. The tuition sessions were well-received, as Aarushi made use of engaging activities, such as Maths Bingo and Dice Multiplication for her lessons, as well as charades for her French class. In a short span of time, Aarushi found many parents contacting her to tell her how much their children enjoyed her lessons and expressing interest to continue the tuition sessions for a fee.

Instead of collecting payment for her tuition services, she decided to channel all the earnings to BMDP instead. She said, “It took me almost a week to select a charity to support, but I chose BMDP because blood disease is an illness that can turn someone’s life upside down. Also, finding a donor with an exact HLA¹ match is more difficult than finding a donor with the same blood type.”

Besides setting up a fundraiser on Giving.SG with the assistance from BMDP, Aarushi also devised a prepaid system whereby sessions can only be scheduled after payment is made. This enabled her to track the amount she raised. Her fundraising drive received positive response from the parents, and Aarushi has raised SGD1,230 of a projected SGD1,500 from 18 donors to-date.

“Giving back to society has always been an important thing to do for my family. My great-grandparents established a non-profit hospital organisation to treat patients who could not afford medical fees and my grandparents taught the less fortunate lessons for free in India. I came to Singapore in 2012, attributing most of my ‘growing up years’ to the local community, and I have always wanted to play a part to give back to society in one way or another. I have finally found a great way to use my knowledge to guide others in their studies while helping those who are suffering from illness at the same time,” Aarushi added.

Mr Charles Loh, Chief Executive Officer of the BMDP, said “We are very heartened that Aarushi, despite her young age, came to us with such a creative idea to raise funds for BMDP. What really impressed me was her clear understanding and passion about the work we do. She is aware about what a bone marrow transplant means to patients and the difficulties some of them are facing. We are thankful for people like her and truly hope that she will inspire others too.”

For more information, or to participate in Aarushi’s fundraising project, please visit the initiative here.

HLA¹ – Human Leukocyte Antigen, are proteins found in almost every cell of the body and are used to identify a matching donor for a patient.

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About the Bone Marrow Donor Programme

The Bone Marrow Donor Programme was established in 1993 to save lives. It is a non-profit organisation responsible for building and managing Singapore’s only register of volunteer marrow donors who are willing to donate their bone marrow and help those who need a transplant to survive. Its mission is to provide hope for patients with leukaemia, lymphoma and other blood-related diseases by finding them an unrelated matching marrow donor, their last hope of survival. For more information about the Bone Marrow Donor Programme, please visit www.bmdp.org.

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