A tale of two Singapores

Justin Khoo, seven, attends a top boys' school in Bukit Timah. Like most kids his age, he loves ice cream and video games. But, unlike most kids his age, he has had a most unusual weekend pursuit for the past year and a half.

He spends Saturday afternoons with his parents befriending lonely older folk in one of Singapore's poorest housing estates.

Justin sings songs, helps organise birthday parties and even goes door to door with his dad, Raymond, distributing food items such as bread, fruit, oats and cookies.

As wages at the bottom stagnate, Singapore ages and a debate rages on the lack of diversity in our top schools, the Khoos have found a simple way of trying to ensure that their privileged young son remains grounded - and learns early that there are many who live on very little even in one of the richest cities in the world.

Saturdays@Lengkok Bahru is a small volunteer group started by Mr Khoo and his friend Jeremy Gui, comprising mainly friends and relatives. They pay for the food from their own pockets. Volunteers also hold tuition sessions for children in primary school from the same blocks.

It's a small effort but remarkable on many fronts. First, although initiated by private individuals, it is not an ad-hoc activity.

Second, it involves young children. Most of Justin's Primary One classmates have visited and distributed food at the block. An eight- year-old friend was so moved by what he saw that he asked for donations to the cause in lieu of birthday gifts. He raised $1,000.

And finally, and above all, it tries to build bridges between two groups of people who have little in common except their humanity.

Mr Khoo, 50, who runs his own F&B consulting business, was galvanised into action after visiting Lengkok Bahru with bags of goodies during Christmas 2010. It was his first experience of a rental block.

"I was just shocked at how little they had," he says matter-of-factly. "And I knew I needed to do more than just visit once a year."

Being "shocked" or "saddened" by the state of families living in rental blocks is a refrain I hear a lot, especially from first-time volunteers.

The surprise comes not from the condition the poor are in - indeed most have fridges, fans and TVs, luxuries unheard of among the poor in developing countries.

It lies more in the fact that poverty in Singapore is largely hidden behind the shiny facades of HDB blocks.

Unless you walk the corridors and knock on doors, you don't really see how the poor live. Some have no furniture at all. Others hoard.

In recent years, I have become increasingly aware of two very different and disconnected Singapores. One is of low-income families who, despite increasing help, continue to struggle.

As of 2012, there were more than 100,000 households with average incomes of around $1,600 a month, including CPF contributions.

This does not include those who don't work - such as impoverished retirees and single mothers with special needs children. There are no publicly available figures of how many such households there are.

At the other end of the spectrum, according to the Boston Consulting Group, Singapore has one of the highest numbers of millionaires per capita in the world, with one in 12 resident households in that elite club. Rich kids are known to flaunt dozens of their designer duds on Instagram.

A young, self-professed "luxury blogger" recently raised $40,000 for her birthday party. And a gold-flecked champagne cocktail - garnished with a one-carat diamond - at one nightclub reportedly costs $32,000.

Nowhere is the contrast more evident than in the plight of the young and the old. Many residents in the Lengkok Bahru block where the Khoos hold their afternoon tea sessions, for instance, are unable to work.

Among them is a single mother with two children who gets by primarily on the $500 maintenance payment from her ex-husband every month.

The amount has not changed in more than 15 years. In another home I visited, 10 children shared the living room of a two-room flat at bedtime.

Contrast this with the fact that there are children just starting primary school whose parents spend upwards of $3,000 a month on enrichment classes. They clamour for - and often get - their own iPads and iPhones by the time they begin primary school.

Teen queen of hearts Taylor Swift will be holding concerts here this week with tickets priced as high as $288.

After the Primary School Leaving Examination, children from poorer homes appear to be reluctant to enter some of the top schools - even if they have the requisite grades - for fear they will not fit in.

Just last week, Raffles Institution announced that it was refining a scheme to draw in pupils from lower-income backgrounds.

While all countries have a rich-poor divide, there are several reasons we have to pay heed to what's happening here. Singapore has one of the deepest income divides in the developed world.

Besides, there is anecdotal evidence that we could be raising a generation of entitled kids who - thanks to school volunteer trips - may know about poverty in Cambodia, India or China, but remain clueless about the deprivation right on their doorstep.

An over-emphasis on self-reliance and personal responsibility may have also led to a generation which believes that the poor are stuck in a rut because they are lazy or irresponsible.

This creates an empathy gap and, occasionally, downright churlish behaviour. A young woman recently posted a photo online making fun of an old man for wearing a shirt with holes in it.

Recent research from the well-known Poverty Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows that the poor lack the cognitive "bandwidth" to take crucial decisions.

Basically they are so caught up in making ends meet that they are sometimes incapable of making long-term decisions that could help pull them out of the poverty trap.

Several young volunteers I spoke with voiced concern about this disconnect. A 20-year-old second-year university student, who attended school and junior college in Bukit Timah and has been on a school trip to Cambodia, for instance, says she was totally unprepared for what she saw when she began volunteering to clean older folks' homes in Geylang Bahru.

"They have such few possessions and so many are so lonely," she said. "It's sad that when we want to volunteer, we think of going abroad. So many of us don't know the extent of need here."

While our school system conscripts caring - community involvement is mandatory - not all volunteer with the poor. The young woman who now volunteers in Geylang Bahru, for instance, spent her community involvement programme (CIP) years raising funds through street donations and stacking bookshelves at public libraries.

But happily, several moves are afoot to bridge the awareness and empathy gap. The first-ever public awareness campaign on poverty in Singapore, initiated by Caritas, the social service arm of the Catholic church, attracted much discussion.

The organisers say the advertisements - in print, in cinemas and online - garnered 11 million views.

There has also been a surge in the number of youth groups keen to help the poor although, by their own admission, they are in a minority.

But much more can be done. Rather than send even more children on trips overseas - as an MP suggested recently - there is a need for more awareness and emphasis on structured volunteering opportunities for the young at home. Volunteerism especially among youth is an important way to build community bonds.

Since CIP is not restricted to working with the poor, more independent schools or those in private estates can consider offering community service CCAs. More data on the causes people volunteer in will also be helpful.

Condominiums can start their own volunteer clubs by reaching out to residents in their community. And finally, perhaps hardest of all, parents could try taking the lead in finding time to make volunteering in their communities a family activity.

Studies overseas have highlighted the importance of starting kids young when it comes to doing good - just as the Khoos have done with their little project in Lengkok Bahru. And school holidays are the best time to start.

This article was first published on June 8, 2014.
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