Venue: MPFSC (Block 6, 15, 16 Marine Terrance)
Duration: 6.5 hours (1000 – 1330 hrs, 1530 – 1830 hrs)
People involved: Boon Kiat, Edmund, Joseph, Seth, Thomas, Zhan Liang, Calvin
We reported at MPFSC at 1000hrs to continue our outreach project, but unlike the last time, instead of visiting rental apartments, we were to visit three-room apartments at Blk 6 (where Good Life @ South East is located). We were briefed by the personnel in-charge on the details, what to do, what to ask, and what to find out from the residents, for about half an hour, before starting out on our outreach project at around 1030 hrs. Our focus of this outreach project was somewhat the same as that we did the last time, to investigate the living status of senior residents at the block. Each pair were to visit unit-by-unit, covering 4 floors, to find out their names, whether they heard of and whether they are members of Good Life @ South East, who they are living with in the unit, their support network of relatives and friends, how they pay for their expenses, their medical conditions, their contact numbers so that MPFSC can contact and inform them about activities, and for those senior residents living alone, whether they will be interested in delivery of meals at two dollars per meal and whether they will be interested in joining a club where senior residents can meet weekly to interact with one another and make more friends, expand their social circle. As we wanted to find a senior citizen per pair to attach ourselves to as befrienders, but the centre could not find sufficient senior residents for us to attach ourselves to, we took this opportunity to approach and look senior residents who were willing to accept our befriending services.
What we experienced this time was somewhat about the same as that we did the last time, except that, more people were not at home but out at work or doing grocery shopping, conditions of the apartments were better, lesser occurrence of language barriers as most people knew how to speak the universal language English, as such lesser people rejected and closed the door on us as they could understand our explanation of why we were there visiting unit-by-unit. However, there was an especially significant difference in the needs of the senior residents of the three-room apartments we were visiting, as compared to that of the rental apartments we visited the last time. Senior residents of the rental apartments we visited the last time were more in need of basic financial support (eg. money for food and other basic needs) while senior residents of the three-room apartments we were visiting were more evidently in need of social support network, as although these senior residents are relatively richer, most were living alone, having very small social support network and were lonely. Our focus was thus to find out about and record their social support network so as to identify those who might require assistance in social support from the centre, and also to look for those who require social support and were willing to accept our befriending services.
We managed to finish our outreach project in one and a half hours and went back to meet at MPFSC at around 1215hrs, to discuss and conclude on our findings with the personnel in-charge, for about half an hour. Only one pair managed to find a senior resident willing to accept the befriending service. Knowing that we wanted to do befriending with senior residents, the personnel in-charge then found us each pair two units at Blk 15/16 from the records, who are more in need and may require befriending services, to approach and ask for whether they were willing to accept our befriending services. We left at around 1245hrs and visited our respective two units for about half and hour before meeting back at MPFSC at around 1315hrs to discuss and conclude on our results for about fifteen minutes. All of us got rejected and we did not manage to find any senior residents willing to accept our befriending services. We left for lunch at around 1330hrs.
We came back from lunch and reported at MPFSC at around 1530 to help the YAH! Community College to do some paperwork (folding and stamping of letters to be sent to their students). We were briefed by a personnel in-charge from the YAH! Community College on what to do. We were to fold two sets of papers (yellow set on top of the pink set), slot them into envelopes and have the envelopes well-stamped. We had helped MPFSC to somewhat of the same tasks before (folding of newsletters, slotting them into envelopes, having the envelopes well-stamped, pasting the addresses of the recipients onto the envelopes and thereafter dispatching the envelopes into post-boxes and mail-boxes) and thus recognized that we have to divide our tasks (Edmund and Joseph doing the folding, Thomas doing the slotting into the envelopes and Boon Kiat doing the stamping of the envelopes) in order to achieve the highest efficiency, and complete the tasks in the shortest time possible. After a while, there were insufficient stapled yellow set of papers, while there were insufficient stamps to stamp on the envelopes thus Boon Kiat changed tasks and went to staple together the yellow set of papers, before changing back to stamping after more stamps arrived. We learnt to think quickly, make use of all the manpower available and be flexible to change when unexpected incidents occur, in order to sustain the highest efficiency and complete the tasks in the shortest time possible. We completed all the paperwork in about three hours, stopping at around 1830hrs.
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