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27TOUCH Report 2008Bringing foreign students in Singapore closer homeIn the year, TCSI continued to actively engage foreign students adjusting to life inSingapore through its orientation programme and befriender activities. To promotegreater social interaction and cultural understanding, Meals@Home was launchedin June where a host Singaporean family would meet a group of four internationalstudents for four meals over a period of four months. A total of 200 studentswere put on this programme, supported by 50 host families. Feedback has beenpositive as it gave the international students a chance to experience love, care andfriendship in a family setting to lessen any homesick feelings.In a Customer Satisfaction Survey conducted in 2008, after 9 months of seminarsand camp, at least 80% of the foreign students indicated that they have grownin personal effectiveness and communication skills. 50% of respondents alsovolunteered to be befrienders for the next batch of foreign students.Moving forward, TCSI will prepare itself to re-launch the final phase (from 2009 to2011) of the Thousand Linking Hands or 千 牵 手 with an emphasis on helping theneedy in Sichuan. A new batch of volunteers and Singapore and Shanghai wouldhave to be recruited and trained for this project. TCSI will also look into expandingthe experience of its skilled volunteers with a one-year overseas stint, to enablethem to play a larger role in TCSI’s work. With the global financial crisis, many jobswere lost. TCSI will continue to work in post-earthquake Sichuan to help the localsregain their livelihoods as soon as possible.