Dear friends, “My friends and I never thought that we could trust the boys,” declared a 15-year-old girl. “We never thought that they will care about our fears and our safety,” she added. Her friends who were with her nodded but together they said that they are happy to have been proven wrong. Since 2020 a group of girls have been coming together to discuss sexuality, relationships, and other topics that youth find difficult to raise with others (AWB -2043). They have benefitted from the experience and feel that they could do something to support their peers who may be at risk of sexual …
Another Week Beyond – 2205
Dear friends, Wishing you strength and vitality this Year of the Tiger. Good health is the blessing that all of us could do with regardless of who and where we are in life. 12 residents came together to select 2 neighbours as Community Fellows who would be responsible for executing initiatives that encourage healthier lifestyles and positive health-seeking behaviour. The Community Enablers Fellowship Programme is our new endeavour to support residents who are passionate about initiating and incubating a neighbourhood project that tackles a local concern or aspiration. We are aiming to appoint 6 Community Fellows from 3 different localities who …
Another Week Beyond – 2153
Dear friends, 2 brothers who lost their mother suddenly have been in the care of their father the past month (AWB – 2146). Dad’s exclusion order from the family home was lifted, and he is currently supporting his family by working as a safe-entry inspector at a hawker centre. The hours are long, but he is allowed to leave his post in the late afternoon to pick up his younger son from the students’ care centre. Last week, we facilitated a planning meeting to strengthen the support around the family. There were 2 items on the agenda. One was that dad should …
Another Week Beyond – 2152
Dear friends, For more than 20 years now, we have been organising a year-end ritual we call a Celebration of Learning, to acknowledge the learning achievements of young people as well as their caregivers. These events have been held in auditoriums, hotel function rooms and community halls where gifts were presented, and a sumptuous meal was served. All done to impress on those who came that their achievements, modest as they may be, mattered. This ritual continued these past 2 years online or in decentralised fashion and, in many ways, it seemed even more meaningful for the young people and their …
Another Week Beyond – 2149
Dear friends, In May this year, 2 residents who help to direct food and other essentials to their neighbours fell out with each other. One is connected to some 80 older persons in the neighbourhood and the other, reaches out to families with children. Both consider themselves to be volunteers of our organisation and they both take their role as the coordinator of goodwill going into their neighbourhood very seriously, and with much pride. Both also believe in collaborating, sharing, and minimising wastage and the duplication of resources to the same recipient. These past 7 months have been very difficult for both. They …
Another Week Beyond – 2147
Dear friends, The 5 Family Circles met, and we were most encouraged when members of 1 circle told us that it was the best session they had so far, elaborating that they were no longer feeling awkward with each other and really enjoyed their conversation. This circle was meeting for the third time and seemed to have acted on a gentle provocation we introduced at the beginning of the session, “Why is it that people in the group only seem comfortable with those from their own neighbourhood?” We then said that we would like them to run the meeting and left the zoom room. …
Another Week Beyond – 2144
Dear friends, Although they had met online twice previously, 2 mothers only realised that they both hail from the same county in Hainan China before making Singapore home. Excitedly, both began conversing in Hainanese in the midst of others during a virtual meeting. After a minute or so, they caught themselves and agreed to connect on WeChat after the meeting to discuss a recipe for braised duck. No one at the meeting was offended by this spontaneous side dialogue. Instead, everyone found the spontaneity rather amusing and a pleasure to witness. These 7 Chinese speaking caregivers have been coming together as a mutual …
Another Week Beyond – 2125
Dear friends, The Heightened Alert which began on 16 May 2021 has moved into Phase 3 since Monday. Social gatherings of 5 persons and below are allowed and hopefully dining-in at eateries and hawker centres will resume next Monday. We are still working from home and most of us are generally getting by. However, the situation has caused job loss or reduced income for several breadwinners who were mainly cleaners or helpers in coffee shops, hawker centres and restaurants. We have been directing such families to the government’s COVID-19 Recovery Grant-Temporary, where they will receive one-off support ranging from $500 to …
Another Week Beyond – 2122
Dear friends, We gave out 35 laptops this week to support home-based learning mainly for children taking their Primary School Leaving Examinations later this year. The laptops have been available for some time but with this current “heightened alert,” families are requesting for them urgently. These children and their caregivers acknowledge that online learning is now a reality, but it will be a while before it is second nature to them. During a zoom call with a group of volunteers, caregivers shared that they found it difficult assisting their children to navigate online learning platforms and requested for the volunteers to return when …
Another Week Beyond – 2120
Dear friends, In the service of people’s efforts, a colleague joined Mariam, a mother of 2 grown up children as she prepared to distribute 120 packets of food to her neighbours. Mariam has been living in her 2-room public rental flat the past 10 years and she revealed that she has not exactly been socialising with neighbours and had preferred very much to keep to herself. This Ramadan though, she had been reaching out to her neighbours by providing a packed meal every Saturday. There was a queue 15 minutes before the stated distribution time and the event was over in 15 minutes …