Finding new ways to connect seniors

Dialects have long been deprecated in Singapore, with the Babel’s tower of languages here streamlined into three official mother tongues. While this was done for practical, social, political and other reasons, it has also had, or given, the effect of cutting off dialect-speaking seniors. In recent years, dialects have been creeping back in various outreach projects. The most recent of these is the National Heritage Board’s Discover Through Dialects: Kreta Ayer Heritage Tours which offers tours in Cantonese, Teochew or Hokkien. National arts and heritage institutions have also conducted dialect tours for visiting seniors. These limited tours, conducted by volunteers and docents, tend to get snapped up quickly, reflecting the pent-up demand.

Reaching out to vulnerable seniors is an urgent imperative, especially as the pandemic has compounded the woes of those who are living alone. The Samaritans of Singapore reported that the 2020 suicide rate of seniors jumped by 26 per cent from 2019, triggered by health and financial worries as well as the speed of social changes due to the pandemic.