On 27-28 May 2009, a total of 180 youths gathered together at City Harvest Church’s premises at 1 Jurong West St 91 for an event named Dream It On. The event aimed to give participants an opportunity to ignite dreams and passions through the performances and workshop sessions. To kick-start the event was a fun-filled session of the ‘Scissors Paper Stone’ game followed by a time of praise and worship led by Raymond Low and Nicole Lim.
Before commencing with the programs of the day, Cindy Koh, social worker and event organizer, shared about ‘dreaming it on’ and the importance of having a dream as a youth. Having a dream in life isn’t just wishful daydreaming, but about knowing one’s purpose and direction in life instead of dribbling around and cruising through life. At the end of the session, Cindy encouraged the youths to live life fully and to discover their purpose by knowing God.
There were a total of five different workshops namely Singing, Dance, Make-up, Modeling and Photography offered to the youths over a course span of two days.
Conducting the singing workshop was Aldrich Tjahjadi, one of City Harvest’s Worship leaders. The veteran taught the students the importance of the vocal cords, how to protect it and even gave advice to the youths on how to become a better singer! Perhaps we might even see some Singapore Idols emerging from this group of aspiring young talents!
At the makeup workshop, established makeup artist Cindy Ng whose track record consist of various projects such as the Miss Singapore World Charity Event, Escada fashion show, Style Weddings magazine’s Bridal Bash event and more, taught the young ‘palawans’ the authentic makeup techniques. Besides the theory behind the skill, the youths also got a chance to do some hands-on on one another!
Meanwhile at the dance workshop, impacting the grooves to the students was Theresa Yee, one of the dancer and choreographer from O school, who also bagged the Emerge Talentime 2006 Champion along with other stage accomplishments. Students who hoped to be able to take center stage in the dance platform soon found out, to their dismay that, all that would come with a hefty price; hours of body conditioning and down-right practice! While the students were looking a little flimsy at first, they managed to put it off towards the end, showing that they do have what it takes to groov-ey!
Over at the modeling workshop, Asian Conference finalists, Deborah Chan and Desmond Kwan taught the runway hopefuls the theory behind all the glitz and glamour of runway modeling. After going through all the technical aspects of modeling, the runway hopefuls must now employ what they learnt by flaunting their thing on the runway! All were hesitant at the beginning, but after walking the runway for first time, you can see almost all of the youths wanting a second shot at runway!
   |
| PHOTOS: Mikki Charis |
Cherie, 19 years old O level student commented “I didn’t know that dance can look this good! In the past, I always wanted to learn more about dance but never have the finances to do so. But today, ‘Dream It On’ event has really allowed my dreams to come true”
Xin Ying, 17 years old Singapore Polytechnic student said “Through the workshop, I learnt more about singing, how to protect my voice, what food to eat and how to improve my vocal range. The workshop also helped me to become a better choir member.”
Event organizers, Lee Faji and Cindy Koh shared with us, “The idea of ‘Dream It On’ came about simply because every single young person do have dreams, be it modeling, dance, singing, make-up or photography or others, but some may not have the financial resources to pursue their dreams. Hence, ‘Dream It On’ allows the youths to have a taste of living their dreams and to hopefully one day, achieve them.”
At the end of the day, all the youths had a ball of a time at the various workshops, and were really excited and all pumped up to pursue their dreams. Indeed, dreams do come true, if you are willing to dream it on.
