Our Volunteers
The National Heritage Board (NHB)'s family of docents and volunteers are the soul of our museums and heritage institutions. Their contributions from bringing the stories behind our artefacts to life to conducting heritage trails and tours at Singapore’s National Monuments and Sites, have been significant in our mission to safeguard and promote Singapore’s heritage.
Over the years, NHB's family of volunteers and docents have grown, reflecting the growing interest in our heritage. We have our dedicated docent guides like Friends of the Museums (FOM) and Museum Volunteers (MV), taking time off their busy schedule to relentlessly guide on weekdays and weekends respectively. Our distinct Mandarin Docents (MD) and Mandarin Guides (MG) are committed to serving Chinese-speaking visitors by conducting tours in Mandarin and dialects. Then there are our Japanese Docents (JD), dedicated to not just guiding in Japanese but also engaging the growing Japanese Community through blogs and radio.
Our family of volunteers also includes the enthusiastic Museum Hosts who are our ambassadors onsite, enriching visitor experiences at our institutions. Volunteers from the Preservation of Sites and Monuments (PSM) and various community groups regularly contribute their valuable time and energy to NHB’s programmes and institutions. They have all become our voices and faces, significantly contributing to the Heritage scene in Singapore.
For enquiries regarding NHB's Volunteer Engagement programmes and recruitment and other volunteer groups (not listed below) please e-mail volunteers@nhb.gov.sg.
For enquiries regarding the Friends of the Museums, Singapore, please contact: 6337 3685 or e-mail office@fom.sg.
For enquiries regarding the Museum Volunteers (MV), please e-mail museumvolsingapore@gmail.com
For enquiries regarding the Mandarin Docents (National Museum of Singapore), please e-mail NHB_NM_Volunteer@nhb.gov.sg
Be a Heritage Champion for Heritage Activation Nodes
The National Heritage Board is rolling out an exciting new initiative, the Heritage Activation Nodes (HAN), that would offer a myriad of volunteering opportunities at our respective HAN neighbourhoods.
Email us at NHB_HAN@nhb.gov.sg to find out more about volunteering for HAN!
Read more about Our Volunteers
Discover more about our heritage volunteers through stories from our heritage resource portal, Roots.sg.
Our Volunteers in the News
The Straits Times
May 17 2015
FRIENDS OF THE MUSEUMS HELP TELL THE SINGAPORE STORY
Head of docent group out to get more Singaporeans to be volunteer guides.
When Ms Elaine Cheong joined the Friends of the Museums (FOM) in 1998, she was one of the only five Singaporean women in a batch of 80 new volunteers.
The others attending a nine-month-long training programme to become museum guides were mostly wives of expatriates from different parts of the world.
Read full article here
The Straits Times
February 21 2015
WANTED: VOLUNTEER MUSEUM GUIDES
No experience necessary. National Heritage Board will now help recruit and train docents. Must commit to volunteering at least once a month for two years.
Ms Yuen Tan, who has been giving tours at the National Museum of Singapore for a year and a half with docent group Museum Volunteers, said she signed up because she wanted to know more about her heritage.
“I started out being very ignorant about Singapore history,” said Ms Tan, who is in her 30s and works in a system integration firm. “ All I knew was that we used to be a fishing village, and then we were separated (from Malaysia) in 1965. It made me feel ignorant that I didn’t even know about my own roots.”
Read full article here
Volunteer Opportunities at Community Events, Heritage Trails and other Heritage projects
If you have the passion for heritage, we welcome you to volunteer for our community events, heritage trails and even community gallery museums. Join our mailing list at NHB_HeritageTrails@nhb.gov.sg to be kept updated about the volunteering opportunities.