Story contributed by Myna, Community Worker
Our Early Learning Programme had been running for a few months in Bukit Ho Swee – a weekly, intervention-based literacy and numeracy initiative for young children, supported by volunteers from Bank of America. Seven children showed up regularly, dropped off by their parents. And every week, the volunteers greeted them at the door.
But beyond those quick handovers during drop-off and pick-up, there hadn’t been much space for conversation. The ones guiding the children in the sessions had never truly connected with the ones guiding them at home.
So, for the first time, we brought everyone into the same room.
We began with a simple icebreaker, “Blow Wind Blow”, which most hadn’t played since their school days. Just enough to introduce them to one another and draw out a few laughs.
Then we moved into the 1-to-1 sessions. Each parent sat with their child’s volunteer tutor. There were no report books or academic charts, just honest conversations about how each child was doing and what might help them thrive. A mother shared how her son had recently begun speech therapy. Another described how her daughter sometimes grew quiet when overwhelmed. In return, the volunteers shared what they had noticed in sessions, beyond just academic progress – a gentle moment of care, a spark of confidence, a quiet kind of leadership that surfaced.
Details that only emerged when you’d spent time with a child week after week. And paid attention.
Then came lunch.
It had been cooked by a neighbour who wasn’t part of the programme but had offered to contribute anyway. And somehow, over rice and home-cooked dishes, the group settled into something warmer, something less structured. Conversations moved from worksheets to work life, from child behaviour to childhood memories. One of the mothers shared that she used to work in banking while living in Malaysia — something the volunteers could relate to a little too easily. They swapped stories, commiserated over deadlines, and joked about customer complaints.
By the end of the meal, another mother offered her staff discount from the fast-food outlet she worked at. A week later, she followed up with a text to remind them to use it before it expired.
For a few hours that Saturday morning, everyone in the room was working together, not just for the programme, but for the children they all cared about.
By the end, the chairs weren’t in a circle anymore. They’d been moved, reassembled, clustered around stories and laughter and shared purpose. What began as a meeting became something more. It became a reminder that when we come together for the sake of our children, we often find something larger: a community in the making.
It’s moments like these that your support makes possible.
If you’d like to contribute to initiatives like the Early Learning Programme, you can still make a difference through bulk purchases of tickets for our Charity Draw 2025. Reach out to us at partnerships@beyond.org.sg before 16 September 2025 for more details.
Or, if you prefer, consider making a direct donation to support initiatives that bring families, neighbours, and volunteers together – for the children, and for the community we’re building around them.
Learn more at bit.ly/BSSCharityDraw