Too Busy to Care?

Our company is running a global Week of Caring for our business unit. Our regional office has been instructed to organise community programs for the week of 11th - 16th of September. As Communications/Web Manager, I have been given to role of organising it for the Singapore office as both my boss and her 2nd in command are both flying this month. I was none too happy at being awarded with another "day to day task" (there have been too many of those!) given the workload I already have. I'm too busy to be doing this just the President of our business unit is moving on to a new role and wants to create an impact before he goes, I thought. But, it had landed on my plate, and that was that.

As we already have been working with the Society for the Physically Disabled (SPD), it was an easy decision to continue what we have been doing all along. The only difference was that while we had previously organised charity grocery runs for the physically disabled, i.e. buying food and delivering them to the list of beneficiaries, we would be helping to clean, paint and organise the houses for them for the week of caring. That was the initial plan.

One of our team members followed the representative from SPD to visit our "clients" at their homes and do an "onsite survey". The photos he brought back with him were really sad, and we realised the work scope would go beyond the original plan.

I was given the task of attaining approval for project budget, which had more than doubled based on the condition of the homes. More than paint, soap and water were needed to make the homes we were going to clean livable.

One family had a son who was only 17 and still studying. His father, the sole breadwinner of the house suffered a severe stroke 20 years ago which had paralysed him and left him unable to work. His mother did odd jobs here and there to earn a meagre income, and they got by with food donated by charity or from community centres. The son was initially living with his grandmother in a 3 room flat and well cared for. However, as his mother required help looking after his father, he returned to stay with them in their one room flat composed of mattresses and electrical appliances picked out of the garbage.

They slept on mattresses infested with bed bugs and the boy was visibly covered with scars, according to my colleague. A pest extermination company would need to be called in before any work could be started in that home. A new bed, mattresses and bedsheets would also need to be purchased to replace their existing ones.

This is just one, and definitely not the worst of the condition of the homes. I can't even begin to describe the state of the other homes. Broken toilet cisterns had to be fixed and electrical wiring redone in one house. A handyman had to be engaged for another just to repair the existing condition of the furniture. It is emotionally disturbing. These people are not lazy people who do not care how they live - they just do what they can given their condition and limitations.

While I am aware that poverty exists in every country and Singapore is not spared, I have never realised it could be so bad. Or rather, I never realised the full implications of how poverty can incur such a heavy tax on the quality of lives.

While I do not identify with my colleague who commented that looking at those photos made her realise how lucky she was, it did cause me to start counting my blessings. While I have a problem with her reaction - the key point here should be the state of these people and how we can help rather than how lucky we are compared to them - I did realise that I have taken a lot of things in my life for granted.

The thing that DID impact me however, was the courage of these people to carry on with their lives. Some of them are actually intelligent, vibrant conversationalists with a keen mind, but crippled in their body. And they had many unfortunate events in life that have made their circumstances worse. Yet they were able to live out their lives a day at a time, under the most unbearable, meagre conditions. I have a lot to learn from them. A lot indeed.