A total of 111 winners have been honoured at the Live On Festival Awards Ceremony 2023 for their outstanding essays and artworks on organ donation and transplantation. Dr Mohamad Maliki Bin Osman, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Education & Foreign Affairs, graced the awards ceremony held on 19 August 2023.
2. Chung Cheng High School (Yishun), Presbyterian High School and Yishun Town Secondary School were recipients of the new “School of the Year” award category. The award is presented to the schools with the overall best entries within the design and essay competition categories.
3. This year, a total of 5,177 entries, comprising 2,136 essay and 3,041 artworks, were received across all categories (School and Open), with a total of 111 participating secondary schools. This marks an increase of 20% in entries from the preceding year.
Live On Festival
4. At present, more than 600 patients are waiting for an organ transplant in Singapore. Held annually since 2018, the Live On Festival is one of Singapore’s ongoing efforts to promote greater awareness of organ donation and transplantation, and facilitate shifts in societal attitudes and views on organ donation to encourage organ donation.
5. This year, the National Organ Transplant Unit (NOTU) conducted talks for students across 70 secondary schools, reaching close to 17,000 students, to provide students with information on organ donation and transplantation in Singapore. Through the video sharing of testimonies from families of deceased organ donors and transplant recipients, students gained insights on organ donation and transplantation, as well as the values of responsibility, compassion and empathy.
6. To extend the messages of organ donation and transplantation beyond the competition, the winning entries have been incorporated into collaterals which are distributed at NOTU’s engagements. These include tote bags which carry the designs of the top three winning entries of the Design Competition, and notebooks incorporating the winning entries. The full list of winners is in Annex A.
7. The winning entries for this year’s Live On Festival will also be exhibited at various locations, including Jurong Regional Library in January 2024, and Punggol Regional Library in February 2024. More details on the exhibitions can be found on the Live On social media pages (@liveonsg on Instagram and Facebook) later this year.
8. Besides creating awareness amongst youth, the Live On Festival` also empowers them to take the lead to engage in conversations with their peers and families on organ donation and transplantation. We encourage more Singaporeans to discuss their views and decisions on organ donation with their loved ones, so that the life-saving and life-changing benefits of organ transplantation can be better understood and embraced by our society at large.
9. For more information on organ donation, please visit www.liveon.gov.sg.