PHILANTHROPIC organisation The Majurity Trust (TMT) has partnered the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) for the Marina Bay Singapore Countdown 2024.

The event, titled Brightening Lives, is an initiative in which light projections of artworks that touch on social issues will be mapped onto three of Singapore’s iconic landmarks. 

Created by 21 students from five local educational institutions, the artworks will literally shine a light on topics in Singapore from elderly with dementia to mental health issues and employment.

From Dec 26 to 31, the art projections will be shown on the facades of the Fullerton Hotel Singapore, the ArtScience Museum and the Merlion.

TMT hopes that this collaboration will raise awareness and national consciousness of these social issues, as well as inspire volunteerism, particularly during year-end festivities. This year’s initiative has around 200,000 beneficiaries.

Martin Tan, chief executive of TMT, said: “It’s also a season of giving, but giving isn’t restricted to just money – it’s giving out time, resources – and volunteerism is a big part of that. At the end of the year, we want people to think about things that maybe we don’t think about on a regular day. Things like migrant workers, elderly in isolation. We see it as a great opportunity, especially in partnership with URA.”

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For this initiative, the students worked with close to 20 grantee partners, who provided inspiration for the artworks. One projection features migrant workers at a construction site; another tells the story of how a young boy sought emotional support from his loved ones. 

“When you are wanting to ride on a social media kind of countdown, then what you need is content,” said Tan. “What you need is to have access to really good stories and be able to focus the countdown towards something meaningful.”

TMT’s partnership with URA is now in its third year. It started during Covid – when the countdown was predominantly online – with the Shine a Light initiative for the 2022 countdown, which raised about S$1 million. 

“It started three years ago with a simple idea of how can we take a light show to add stories to it – we did it unconsciously ourselves – and raise some funds around it. Then we added more colour, and now the students come in,” Tan said.

He added: “The countdown and Brightening Lives is one of the ways of bringing to the national level a conversation about specific areas.”

The organisation works with and rallies donors – from high-net-worth individuals to family offices and large corporations – to raise funds for grantee partners, who are chosen after being evaluated by a grant panel. In the year to Dec 19, TMT has raised close to S$12 million from around 200 donors. 

“Our job is to support (grantee partners) and rally resources around them, not just monetary resources but capacity-building, mentoring, collaborative opportunities, town halls,” said Tan.

Over the past six years, TMT has raised more than S$30 million from 270 donors, enabling 423 grants to be disbursed. It has supported nearly 300 grantee partners on the ground, including charities, non-profits and social enterprises.

When choosing causes to support, the organisation looks at causes that “really resonate at this point in time”, said Tan. It does open calls for grants based on the needs it has identified before selecting an organisation or charity.

“The team works very closely with the grantee partners on the ground. We have a whole research team that looks at the trends and analysis. It allows us to be relevant,” Tan added.

For instance, TMT chose to focus on youth mental health targeting those aged 10 to 16, because less than 10 per cent of Singapore’s social intervention for youth mental health covers this age group, he noted.

TMT hopes that shining a light on relevant social issues in Singapore to ring in the new year will help to spark conversations.

“We believe that the stories will come forward, and if it achieves our goal of being able to share the stories and inspiration, then there might be possible opportunities for us to continue next year in conjunction and consultation with URA on how more can we tell the stories,” said Tan.