Heroes Unmasked: These youths visit old folk living alone to reassure them on how to keep safe amid Covid-19 outbreak

As Singapore battles the Covid-19 outbreak, TODAY’s Heroes Unmasked series highlights those who are doing their bit to spread kindness and compassion during this period. In this instalment, we speak to three youths who were among 22 volunteers from Youth Corps Singapore who spent last Friday evening (Feb 21) imparting hygiene tips to vulnerable senior citizens who live alone.

SINGAPORE — Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 coronavirus in Singapore, 83-year-old Oh Siew Hong, who lives alone in Jurong East, has been anxiously trying to take appropriate steps to ensure she is not at risk.

The senior citizen has been maintaining a healthy distance when meeting friends, and has stopped shaking their hands.

Madam Oh also makes it a point to wash her hands whenever she returns from the market — acting on tips she learnt from her community exercise group.

But her knowledge of just what she should be doing got a big boost when a group of youth volunteers sprang her a visit at her Housing and Development Board studio flat last Friday night (Feb 21).

The young people were part of a door-to-door outreach programme organised by SG Cares Volunteer Centre @ Jurong East and social service centre Loving Heart Multi-Service Centre.

In collaboration with Youth Corps Singapore — which provides volunteering opportunites for young people to serve the community — the volunteers went knocking on doors to impart hygiene tips and handwashing techniques to ensure that the seniors are equipped with enough knowledge to protect themselves during the outbreak.

“I am very happy to see so many volunteers, I should have prepared some drinks beforehand to treat them,” a delighted Mdm Oh told TODAY soon after the visit.

The young volunteers were able to give her a detailed lesson on the best technique for hand-washing — which Mdm Oh admits she was not quite clear about before.

With a sheepish grin, she explained that she had tried to learn how to wash her hands by replicating the handwashing steps she had seen on television, but was not very certain on the steps until the volunteers appeared at her doorstep.

“I thought there were six steps,” she said, whereas the young volunteers were able to show her that there are eight steps — and to demonstrate them to Mdm Oh in detail.

Other older residents living alone in the same housing block feel even more cut off than Mdm Oh.

When the youth volunteers knocked on the door of Mdm Leong, who did not want to give her full name, the 77-year-old said: “I’m living here alone. I don’t have any friends or family. Only the elderly live here, including my neighbours and they don’t open the doors.”

Both Mdm Ho and Mdm Leong women were part of the group of 52 vulnerable and isolated seniors identified by SG cares and Loving Heart. The volunteer centre regularly reaches out to these seniors under an initiative called Neighbour Cares.

One of the volunteers, Mr Vincent Thian Chuan Keng, 23, an undergraduate, said that he had been volunteering for two years.

He told TODAY that isolated seniors remain a prominent social issue so he spends his free time by engaging them, giving them advice on how they should take care of themselves and pointing them to proper channels to seek help.

Some of the youth volunteers were concerned that language barriers might be a problem, but that did not deter them from trying.

Ms Ramona Wong, 26, a youth volunteer, who works as an assistant manager and has been volunteering for five years, said: “I was quite worried, like if they had spoken in dialect and I don’t. But I'm glad I took this leap of faith to be here to volunteer, despite being very afraid of this language barrier.” 

Youth Corps Singapore volunteers learning how to teach seniors hand-washing at the Loving Heart Multi-Service Centre in Jurong on Feb 21, 2020. Photo: Yong Jun Yuan/TODAY

Another volunteer, Mr Saifuddin Arif Zainal, 22, a student at Singapore Polytechnic, said that he was not discouraged from volunteering despite not being able to speak Mandarin, although most of the older residents he met were Chinese.

“Language barrier is definitely an issue, but any small effort is never wasted. If I can do something to give back to society, no matter how small it is, I think it is worth the time and effort to do so,” he said.

Mr Saifuddin, who has been volunteering for four years, added: “As humans, our duty is to help each other. At the end of the day, we are social creatures. For me I just want to have a meaningful life and spend it meaningfully.”