Nguyen Thi Kim Xuan, 17

School: Bartley Secondary School

Topic: An email on a VIA project to honour deceased donors

Award: Special Mention, Senior Category, 2024

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am Nguyen Thi Kim Xuan from Bartley Secondary School. I am part of the Executive Committee of my school’s Student Council. I am writing this email to tell you about my proposal for my Value-in-Action (VIA) project. This project will be on honouring deceased organ donors which came as an inspiration from my aunt when I was visiting her house.

My aunt has a jar of stars folded by students to honour deceased organ donors. This is significant to her because her mother passed away and donated her organs. I was deeply touched by my aunt’s story because not many people or media outlets will cover stories on deceased organ donors. They do not get as much recognition as they should as they sacrificed themselves to save someone else. So, I want to propose this topic for my VIA project.

My VIA project will be titled “Star of Legacy” which honours the deceased organ donors for their sacrifice to save others. This project will take around 4-5 weeks to complete as there are activities for students to do and we will be inviting guest speakers to share with the students more about deceased organ donors and the legacy that they leave behind.

The main activity that students will be doing is folding stars to honour the donors. This will allow the students to be motivated and engaged about the topic. The members of the Student Council will teach the class chairpersons how to fold the stars which they will then teach their classmates and what is the meaning behind folding the stars. The students can fold as many stars as they want. Each student will be praised for participating in this activity and the top 10 students who had folded the most stars will be rewarded with a small token of appreciation, for showing their empathy and gratitude towards the organ donors.

This activity will be followed up by the students making a thankful board by writing short messages to the past and present donors to show their appreciation and gratitude for making such a huge sacrifice to save someone’s life. These boards will be given to the organisation to let the donors know that people appreciate their efforts.

In between the activities, the teachers will be educating their students and raising awareness about organ donation, and we will invite guest speakers to tell the students more about organ donation, what illnesses will require people to have an organ transplant and how much of a sacrifice the organ donors are making to help someone in need.

The student population will be able to recognise the selfless contributions of organ donors which let them understand the meaning of organ donations. This may encourage students to donate organs in the future. Even if the students do not want to become an organ donor, they can still learn important values from the organ donors such as altruism or kindness which may align with values of their own. This will make a positive impact on the students since they might learn some valuable lessons from the organ donors or from the project.

I think honouring deceased organ donors is important because organ donation is a selfless act that is voluntary. Honouring them will allow organ donation to receive public awareness which can inspire others to register as donors to help people with end-stage organ diseases. Honouring them is also a praise to the donors for their meaningful action to save another life.

Thank you for taking the time to read my email about my VIA project. I hope you find this as meaningful as it is to me and will approve my school to move forward with this project. I hope to hear back from you soon.

Yours sincerely,
Kim Xuan

Disclaimer: Please note that the views and opinions expressed in the essays for the Live On Festival 2024 are those of the participants and are not endorsed by the National Organ Transplant Unit (Ministry of Health).

To learn more about organ donation and organ transplantation in Singapore, please visit www.liveon.gov.sg