Call for more volunteers to support organisations that help caregivers

To ease the load of caregivers, who are often women, Singaporeans should step up and volunteer their energies, said Minister for Communications and Information Josephine Teo.

Noting the dipping trend of volunteerism - due in part to the pandemic - Mrs Teo urged people to lend their support to organisations that help caregivers.

For the first time, the People's Action Party (PAP) annual Women's Wing conference on Saturday featured a public exhibition centred on 23 such groups and initiatives.

Mrs Teo noted that on average, the groups have fewer than half the volunteers they need each month, with some struggling to recruit and retain committed volunteers after several dropped out over the last two years.

Mrs Teo, who is also Second Minister for Home Affairs and chairs the Women's Wing, said there is less stereotyping of women as primary caregivers as more men take on the role here, but more can be done to keep up the momentum.

At the conference, representatives of social service agencies and ground-up groups such as learning and social platform Mum Space and Go With The Motion, which provides diapers to low-income families who need them, connected with PAP activists, some of whom have expressed interest in volunteering.

Ms Wang Yu Hsuan, director of eldercare services at the GoodLife! centre under Montfort Care, said more volunteers can help the charity scale up its services, which include accompanying the elderly to medical appointments.

While more young people are helping out in services that do not require them to be on site, Ms Wang, 46, said some seniors who volunteer in person have been turning up less frequently because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Likewise, Be Kind SG, a volunteer group for people with disabilities that are not visible, such as autism, has seen its pool of volunteers drop from about 700 people to around 100 during the pandemic, said founder and director Sherry Soon, 41. She said its Be A Special Friend programme, a befriending service for adults living in destitute or adult disability homes, needs more volunteers for its monthly home visits.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong, who also spoke at the conference, said the city-state must keep at shaping more progressive family norms, encourage more shared parental responsibilities, as well as a more balanced sharing of caregiving responsibilities.