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At 9am, a van sporting a green and blue logo arrives at block 257 Ang Mo Kio. Clad in light-coloured t-shirts, shorts and slippers, volunteers begin unloading brooms, mops, buckets and small cardboard boxes. Some wielding buckets replete with rags and potent detergents, while others heave boxes of painting implements. Undaunted, they make their way to the void deck for their briefing. Today, students from the Raffles Institution Junior College (RI) have come together for one purpose – to make a difference in the lives of others.
The green and blue logo indicates the Singaporean branch of Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit organisation dedicated to fighting poverty by providing decent, safe and affordable housing conditions. Locally, Project HomeWorks is a Singaporean initiative by the organisation aimed at restoring the accommodations of the less fortunate, especially those living in one and two-room rental flats.
With three others, 18-year-old Charlene Yak worked with Habitat for Humanity Singapore to establish a RI-Chapter. Every month, they come together, organising Project HomeWorks sessions to rehabilitate the homes of the needy.
“When you go home after today, remember to soak your clothes in hot water to make sure you don’t have any bedbugs following you home,” cautions Charlene, the chapter head.
The students split into seven teams, each visiting different homes in the area. Each team is led by a Champion – a regular volunteer who manages and runs Project HomeWorks sessions. Last to leave is the team led by Champion Isabella Lee, a 24-year-old graduate from the National University of Singapore.
Isabella and her team are visiting Mr Abdul Aziz, an elderly Malay man in his fifties who shares his two-room rental flat with his wife and two adolescent daughters. His home has been identified as one that needs urgent rehabilitation.
Isabella nestles with six students into the back the van, taking off to block 469.
Looking at the fifth floor’s common corridor, a conspicuous flat stands out among the rest. Soggy yellow remnants of a McDonald’s meal lay in the drainage, while a cluttered laundry line obscures the corridor. Atop wet laundry draped across two bamboo poles, sleeps an unkempt coagulation of towels. Hidden under the bamboo poles propped up by metal stands, festers a black corroding foldable table excreting rust and mold.
A barefoot, bare-headed, plump elderly Malay man greets Isabella outside his flat. The soft-spoken Mr Aziz smiles, ushering the volunteers into his home.
A black coffee table stands in the middle of the tiny living room with piles of paper and plastic bags burying its likeness. Next to the living room is Mr Aziz and his wife’s cramped bedroom. Here, next to their double bed rests a mountain of clothing, taller than the bed itself, and perching atop it, a baby blue toddlers’ chair. Under a naked fluorescent bulb dimly lighting the room, 35-year-old Desti Aziz greets the volunteers.
“Aunty, we help you to clear your drawer first” says 16-year-old Xi Wen Han, to Mrs Aziz, motioning towards a tiered plastic drawer.
They vault into action. Wen Han, together with Mrs Aziz, begin systematically clearing out each drawer, separating items to be discarded from other valued items.
In the living room, four other volunteers carry a worn and tattered mattress down to the void deck. After that, they begin assembling a new plastic drawer for the family. Mr Aziz watches as volunteers mop the floor and lay newspapers around the gate before repainting it. His gaze occasionally shifts to his wedding portrait on the wall.
“Last time he working as a driver, transport passengers. Then after that he got sick – stroke, around 2013. Then got complicated because his age. So he cannot working anymore, because he also dialysis patient, with the kidney disease” says Mrs Aziz, of her husband. She herself is unemployed.
Soon, Mr Aziz will no longer be able to receive dialysis from the National Kidney foundation (NKF), due to medical complications with his vein. As such, will need to administer it at home, piling on to the family’s financial burden with the costlier treatment.
Mr Aziz’s family gets by through financial assistance from the government and the mosque, occasionally receiving food vouchers from the NKF.
“It’s very hard la, but what to do”, says Mrs Aziz.
Isabella and two volunteers use paint scrapers to remove bumps of paint from the weathered gate. Fragments of brown paint flutters to the floor. They start repainting the gate with fresh brown paint.
As the paint dries, the volunteers take to the window panels caked with dust. With volunteers failing to open the padlocked panels, Mr Aziz smiles, and instead of keys, pulls out a bolt cutter. He breaks the lock together with the volunteers.
“know my house very messy because I sometimes don’t have time to clean, I take care of the children, and my husband sometimes, I don’t have time la”, explains Mrs Aziz on the condition of her home.
After three hours of tidying, comes the volunteers’ final task. From the van below the block, they haul up a new mattress to replace the old and tattered one, on which Mr Aziz’s two daughters sleep.
Gesturing to the volunteers, Mrs Aziz says: “I’m very thankful la, give the things all. Can make my happy, make my family happy, my children happy la.”
Upon leaving, Isabella looks at the flat one last time, satisfied with what she and her team has accomplished within mere hours. She smiles, as she waves goodbye to the Aziz family.
“Giving them a better home is not just for a week, it could be for years to come. By doing what we’re doing, we make a direct impact on the lives of the less fortunate” remarks Isabella.
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