Guest blog | Tanglin Trust Junior School raise over $6,000 for Lendwithcare entrepreneurs!

As you know, through Lendwithcare lenders can support poor entrepreneurs around the world with a small loan, enabling them to start and grow their own business, and work their own way out of poverty for them and their families.

You may not be aware that it is also a fantastic tool to engage children of all ages in a wide range of topics such as global poverty, overseas aid, personal finance and entrepreneurship.

One of our biggest school supporters is the Tanglin Trust Junior School in Singapore, who have chosen Lendwithcare as their school charity project. Each class at the Tanglin Trust has their own Lendwithcare account, so the students can keep track of their own fundraising, and choose and debate in class which entrepreneurs they want to support.

Recently Tanglin Trust held a whole week of activities to raise funds to lend in class to Lendwithcare entrepreneurs, and raised an incredible $6,000!

Tanglin Trust Year 3 class

Jessie Montague, Leader of Philanthropy, tells us how the students and staff have been getting involved:

"Since the start of the last academic year, Tanglin Trust Junior School has been supporting Lendwithcare as our whole school charity. Through our Impact Hour lessons the children have learnt about microfinance and have begun to develop an understanding of what it means to be a philanthropist - a skill that we have seen developing across all year groups.

Last year the school held a Mufti (non-uniform) Day and the children brought in donations for Lendwithcare to wear their own clothes for the day. The event was a huge success and we raised around $3,500. This money was then split between the classes and each class researched and debated before making a loan to their chosen entrepreneur. The children have loved monitoring their accounts and seeing the repayments happen, knowing that they can then lend that money again.

This year we set our sights higher and we wanted to try and raise even more money for this brilliant charity. Having focused on the importance of donating time as well as money in lessons, the teachers across the school offered to give up their time to run break and lunchtime activities for a week in return for nominal donations from the children. Pledges of activities came in thick and fast and soon we had an exciting timetable ranging from dodge ball, karaoke, mask-making and everything in between!

As soon as the children began arriving on the first day the atmosphere was palpable. With 800 children in the school it was organised chaos but everyone was having so much fun! The children loved the chance to try new things with different teachers and many staff mentioned how they enjoyed sharing their own hobbies in the school environment. On the Friday we held another non-uniform day and the children were true philanthropists with their donations. Some children even took the initiative to hold bake sales and donate birthday money so they had extra money to bring in; a touching example of their passion for fundraising.

As the week drew to a close we counted the totals in our Lendwithcare jam jars (which had been circling the school all week) and the results were overwhelming. Thanks to many children choosing to do their own fundraising at home, the final total is still increasing, but we have now surpassed $6,000! This will now be converted into vouchers and again our children will have the chance to debate and reason before deciding which entrepreneur to lend to. I know this is a decision they will carefully consider and we believe it is crucial for them to have an understanding of where their money is going and the real-life impact it will make.

In the meantime we are already planning how to make next year's event even bigger and better!"

On behalf of all the Lendwithcare entrepreneurs you'll be able to support, thank you so much to all Tanglin Trust students and staff for getting involved in this incredible fundraising effort. We are excited to see the impact you will have as a school, and to see how next year's event could possible be any bigger!

If you know a school that would like to get involved in the Lendwithcare experience, please get in touch with Elise at easton@careinternational.org. You can also download free school packs with lesson plans and resources for primary and secondary schools from our website here.