WE REFER to the letter by Madam Cindy Chan, 'I thought NUS students would be entrepreneurial' (Aug 12). Students at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have a long tradition of giving back to society through charity and community service events, both in Singapore and the region.

Our leadership and entrepreneurial skills are stretched through creative ways of raising funds for a variety of beneficiaries. These community initiatives include cultural performances, charity car washes, record-breaking feats and charity bazaars.

Our annual NUS Students' Union (Nussu) flag day involves more than 6,000 freshmen and seniors and is a signature event of the NUS freshmen orientation week. Apart from raising funds for a variety of charities, the Nussu flag day bonds all NUS students as they work together in a concerted manner for the benefit of the Singapore community.

Through generous public support, we have raised more than $1 million for many charity organisations through the flag day drive in the past two years alone. These efforts have been recognised at the annual Community Chest Awards since 2003.

Our community-care efforts continue beyond flag day. Recent student projects include the Project Nargis-NUS, which raised close to $90,000 for the Myanmar Cyclone Nargis victims.

Students from our Nussu volunteer action committee also help promote volunteerism among the youth through record-breaking feats at our annual NUS charity fiesta.

Their efforts were recently recognised when the committee was selected from a field of nominations from Commonwealth countries for the prestigious Commonwealth Youth Silver Award. We thank Madam Chan for her comments and assure her that we will continually look for creative, entrepreneurial and relevant ways of raising funds for the less fortunate.

Donald Koh
President, 29th Executive Committee
National University of Singapore Students' Union

Reza Shah Mohd Anwar
Head, Student Organisations
Office of Student Affairs
National University of Singapore

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Aug 22, 2008.