My Itchy Fingers

Star-gazing Mission Possible

Yesterday, Itchyfingers went star-gazing in the afternoon at Orchard Central. Huh? Star gazing in the afternoon? Indoor?

Actually it was a charity sale event organised by Mediacorps in conjunction with one of its tv programmes, Mission Possible, that is still showing on channel 8 every Monday, 8 pm. “According to the United Nation, extreme poverty is defined as living on less than US$1 a day. There is currently 1.2 billion of the world population surviving on less than US$1 daily. Helping the poor and eradicating poverty has been the goal of countless charity organizations and volunteer groups for many years. However, to truly improve the lives of those living below the poverty line, monetary donations cannot be a long-term solution. It is only through education that the people can learn skills and sustain themselves with their own hands.Together with experts, the host ventured into the rural areas where people live in poverty and observed what the locals do for a living. Focusing on available resources, the expert then designed a 3-day workshop for the locals, with the goal to inspire and to teach them how to improve their handicraft skills, in turn increasing their productivity. In the long-run, it is hoped that their standard of living will be improved.”

Itchyfingers has always loved those ethnic designs made by local villagers. Most of them are colourful and intricate. Hence I like this show very much as not only they brought viewers to the remote villages, they also showed us their arts. It was interesting to see new products made by the villagers after interaction with the different experts. The finished products were brought back to Singapore for a charity sale where all proceeds would be given back to the respective villages.

We were half an hour late and it was already so crowded that we couldn’t even go near the stalls to see the products. Some people were there to support their favourite tv actors and actresses, or just to catch a glimpse of them; while some, like Itchyfingers, were interested to support the villagers’ creation. When we finally got some room to stretch our necks nearer, we were disappointed to find that some of the products were already sold out, less than half an hour after the start of the sale.

Was very surprised to see Fann Wong here. Not a fan of her though… :p

What were they looking at? Maybe to check out if other stalls were selling 
like hot cakes. Theirs were making a slow but steady sale…At the right
was the art teacher who taught the kids painting. Some of them were quite
interestingly done 

Up and rising starlet, Zhou Ying, 周颖

So all the star hosts were here to give their support. Maybe there was a 
competition among the stalls as to who can raise the most money…hahah

The stars were very busy….Itchyfingers couldn’t squeeze near to see these
dolls… 郭亮 was here to lend a helping hand to 陈丽萍 ‘s stall…His was not
doing as well, maybe cos his episodes were not on air yet. They were also of
a higher price tag…

These dolls were all reserved, probably the persons didn’t have enough cash…
So they were considered sold unless their purchasers didn’t come back to
claim them. We waited a while to see if we could have the chance to buy them…

The woman in front of me was still trying to grab them…hahah…

The teacher who taught the china villagers to make the dolls. I like the
bag she was carrying…

When we left about 10 minutes later, a lot of the items were all grabbed by fans and supporters. Realised I didn’t take a photo of Dennis Chew and the designer Keith Png..hahah…Maybe cos they were too short…ooops…:p Their ethnic inspired clothes were flying off the rack too. Two more episodes of the programme, Mission Possible, will be on air tonight and next week. Hopefully there will be a follow-up programme to show how the villagers are benefitting from the collaboration and hopefully it will encourage more social enterprises to come up and help these villagers so that in the long run, they would be able to have a better life with a more stable income earned through their hard work instead of relying solely on monetary donation.