Recently been to Tampines Street 44 and
Pipit Road together with the Founder of Project Awareness, Elson Soh, to visit
the families there. First of all, we would like to thank MP Baey Yam Keng and
MP Tin Pei Ling for helping the residents, as many residents sing praises of
them. They help the lower income family to apply for higher grants depending on
each of their situations, lowering their housing rental, providing a free
wheelchair for the physically challenged people, changing their electric meter
when the residents moved in and were charged at an erroneous rate, and even see
photos of them with the residents in their house! This show how much care and
concern they have for the residents there.
Over at Tampines, we spoke to one of the
Malay family Mr Buang, who suffered stage 3 lung cancer, who was diagnosed last
year, and currently quit his job as security officer, in order to continue with
his medical treatment. They mentioned that MP Baey had assisted him to lower
his flat rental from $250+ to $50+ a month, and applied a grant of $1300 from
CDC to support his family of 8 children and a pregnant wife. In order to keep
the SP bills lows, they hardly on their lights and the TV. Initially, we thought
that this family is okay with their large TV, but after talking with them, we
realised that most of the items in the house were donated to them. So we should
never judge any family based on what we see. We never know what their story
behind every door is. The family top up their phones by $2 dollars. We didn’t
know this was possible until they told us about it. In order to keep their
expenses to the minimal, the children had to cycle to school daily. The family
of 8 have to sleep on the living room floor as the bed room is not big enough
for everyone.
After understanding the situation of this
family, we are shocked to see that their fridge is empty, and the daily meals
they have is only white rice, and a bowl of sardine, their worst experience is
that they go by a day without any food and the babies only had water to drink.
We immediately asked the two children (boy studying in Polytechnic and girl
studying in Secondary) to follow us to nearest FairPrice to stock up their
rations. To our surprise, the two children didn't dare to pick up any of the
items from FairPrice even though we told them to select what type of food is
good for their family. They told me that their family never had a chance to do
shopping in such a way as their financial and expenses are very tight.
Over at Pipit Road, we met this Chinese old
couple at the lift lobby while conducting house visiting last night. Mrs Huan
spoke to us in mandarin that MP Tin had given her this free wheelchair due to
her stoke condition and also assisted them to apply for medical grant. Mr Huan (72 years old), currently working
as a cleaner, living with his wife and son who is working odd jobs. They didn't
ask for any assistance but just hoping Project Awareness can provide them with
some goody bag to lighten their daily expenses. We accompany Mr Huan to the nearest hawker
centre and treated him and Mrs Huan to Rojak and ice Kacang, as this is their
favourite food. On behalf and request by Mr Huan and his wife, we thank MP Tin
for your kindness and thoughtfulness.
Another family we met is a Indian lady
named Achi D/O Rengasamy Veeramuthu (73 years old). She has diabetes and her
right leg had severe gangrene and is at a stage where her leg has to be
removed. It was a very sad scene for us. She told us about her story, having
living alone, and cook for herself, it was not easy for her to go down and
purchase groceries for her daily living. Just we are chatting with her, we
chanced upon a photo of MP Tin and her together in a photo. I’m very glad that
MP Tin has visited her before and had rendered help to her as much as possible.
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