Friends of LOO

My First “Toileting” Experience- Internship Experience in RAS

14th May 2007 is the day that my life became even more closely related to toilets. It marks the day that I started working for the Restroom Association ( Singapore) that advocates for clean public toilets in Singapore. The job may sound funny to many people but it has definitely given me a chance to truly experience “real life” marketing.

As RAS is a small organisation, everyone has to put in effort to complete the huge amount of work. Therefore, we interns are given huge responsibilities and assignments to handle, unlike the other big organizations. My job scope includes helping out in their programs and events, assisting RAS staff in their work and anything else that comes along. Fortunately, my supervisors and colleagues are very helpful and guided me along the way.

The first major event was the Project Million Lotus held in conjunction with the Vesak Day’s Celebration at Takashimaya, Ngee Ann City. A big lotus-shaped pillar was decorated and sent to the event area. Although we are just one of the 50 pillars in the event, the sense of accomplishment was satisfying. Much effort was put into the preparation and seeing it a success, all of us from RAS were very glad.

There were many more events and I was given the opportunity to learn and carry them out. Many of these things allowed me to put what I have learnt in school into practical use. Just within a short span of 10 weeks, we have already either organized or taken part in an Appreciation Tea Session for the Volunteers, SHINE! Festival as well as the North West CDC Green Festival. All of these have been thoroughly enriching for me.

Another aspect of my job would be the Happy Toilet Program. I had the opportunity to meet potential clients with Colin as he introduced the programme to them. From there, I learnt that every customer have different requirements even though they may fall in the same category, for example “hospitals”. Hence in order to clinch a deal, we need to fully understand the needs of our clients so that we can impress them and sign the deal.

Through the discussions and planning of events, RAS has faced a lot of challenges. The challenges include getting people to demand for clean toilets, owners to want to provide clean toilets and to manage the massive amount of work with just the small number of staff.

Now that the attachment has ended, I have learnt a lot about NPOs and RAS. Most importantly, I have learnt the practical side of things I have learnt in school. I hope the short period of my attachment has helped RAS just like how RAS has helped me developed into a better “worker” for the society.

Darius Choy
Nanyang Technological University
Nanyang Business School

I’m LOO-ving It! – Internship Experience in RAS

My last summer holiday was quite a fulfilling one as I had the opportunity to do my internship at RAS. As part of the NTU Professional Attachment (PA) programme, I was given the chance to choose six organizations from a list of participating organizations and RAS was ranked first in my list of six chosen ones. I never knew we have an organization in Singapore that advocates for clean public toilets until this internship experience. Many have asked me why I chose RAS as my PA organization instead of other well-established multi-national companies. In my opinion, what matters most is the learning experience an internship can offer. I believe small companies are ideal working environments for interns because one will get to do a lot of hands-on projects and the learning experience is maximized as well. Most importantly, the job scope was very relevant to what I have learned in school and I was very interested in doing marketing-related work. I am glad to have made the right choice.

It has been an enriching and wonderful learning experience for me during my 10-week Professional Attachment. The exposure was great because I had the chance to be involved in a number of projects including organizing the “RAS Appreciates You” Tea Session, as well as developing marketing collaterals for the Happy Toilet School Education for Preschools (HTSEP) programme. It was pleasurable to meet people from different walks of life. I even had the chance to visit primary schools and preschools during my course of work. I had a fun time interacting with preschoolers and gained a lot of insights about preschool education. It was truly a great eye-opening experience for me.

Despite being a greenhorn in this field, my fellow colleagues have showed me the ropes and shared with me their past experiences, as well as providing me help whenever I was in doubt or facing difficulties. I am very thankful for their invaluable guidance and patience, and also for all the opportunities that allowed me to display my skills and creativity. I am glad to see how I have progressed in terms of learning and work accomplishments and I loved the great sense of job satisfaction whenever a project was completed. It felt great knowing that my work contributions were being integrated into the company’s core projects.

Lastly, I will never forget the friendships forged at RAS. The camaraderie is strong and their passion and zeal shown at work is commendable, having learnt a lot from each of them. It has been a pleasurable internship experience and I really enjoyed working with everyone at RAS. I would like to wish them all the best in their future endeavors! Cheers!

Phuah Li-Yean
Nanyang Technological University
Nanyang Business School