CIP Suggestions

CIP – Community Involvement Program which is compulsory for Secondary students. Details can be found here, Thank you, sx4 for sharing and here.

Ever wonder how to fulfil the 100 hours of CIP requirements? If left to the school, it’s very difficult to reach even half of that. But through the student’s initation, clocking 100 hours isn’t that daunting. Mine managed more than 140 hours.

Though it started off as a dreaded task of having to accumulate so many hours within 3.5 years, she went beyond the 100 hours required as she found the experience enriching and rewarding. She was exposed to a variety of situations, people from different walks of life, birds etc which she will not have the opportunity to do so if not for the cip.

Other than the ones organised by her school, these are the various activities that she initiated herself:

1) Library – One of the most popular cip options as it comes with free air-con! But dd didn’t enjoy it as the shelfing and book dust was too much for her sensitive nose. She endured 21 hours here.

Students can sign up by themselves at any library.

2) Marathons – She was a packer at the std chartered marathon, involved in the packing and distribution of race kits to participants. A very hectic 3 day event for her. She was paid $10 a day with KFC meals for lunch and dinner and chalked up 20 hours. A further 10 hours accumulated as a run marshall at the osim triathlon.

Look out for the various run events throughout the year and sign up for them on your own. You can easily accumulate the hours at these mass events.

3) Bird park – She added 30 hours in this 5 day program. She tended to the gardens, fed and learned about birds and watched the various performances. She found it so rewarding that she wanted to sign up again the following year, but was told to go through the school. So, if your child is keen on this, get the school to arrange.

4) Lions home – She was assigned the job of packing chopsticks for charity sale. I was free in the afternoons, so I helped out as well. 30 hours clocked.

5) Flag donation – She did this at the Special Olympics flag day. Most folks avoided the tin-bearers like the plague. A miserable 3 hours clocked but enough for her to see the miserly side of people.

This is commonly arranged by schools or just look out for announcements from various organisations and sign up yourself.

Other CIP suggestions which probably need to be initiated by schools – zoo, spca, beach cleanup, visits to children/elderly home, tutor at cdac/family services centres.