Students moved to help the needy after chance encounter

Meeting with a man sleeping in the rough spurs duo to begin initiative, sprucing up rental flats

Student Sricharan Balasubramanian, who co-founded ground-up initiative Comm.UnitySG, helped to clean and repaint HDB rental flats in the central and north-eastern parts of Singapore last month.
Student Sricharan Balasubramanian, who co-founded ground-up initiative Comm.UnitySG, helped to clean and repaint HDB rental flats in the central and north-eastern parts of Singapore last month. PHOTO: COMM.UNITYSG TEAM

A chance encounter last month with a man sleeping in the rough in Tiong Bahru made two students want to step up and help the vulnerable during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The students of Anglo-Chinese School (Independent), both 18, were taken aback when they asked the man how the coronavirus had impacted his life and if he had received the free masks given by the Government. His answer was that it did not matter whether or not he wore a mask because he did not care if he died.

That was when Harrison Chong and Sricharan Balasubramanian decided to start a ground-up initiative, called Comm.UnitySG, and roped in friends and other students to help.

The 40 students spent up to eight hours a day during the school holidays last month cleaning and repainting Housing Board rental flats in the central and north-eastern parts of Singapore. They had contacted Jalan Besar GRC MP Lily Neo and were referred to collaborate with New Hope Community Services, a charity that provides the homeless with temporary housing, training programmes and counselling.

The students also helped distribute rations and meals such as nasi lemak to the charity's beneficiaries.

Said Sricharan: "Since I started junior college, my personal objective has been to get out of my comfort zone… I saw this initiative as a way to develop myself while doing good for the community."

Harrison, meanwhile, was inspired by his mother who used to work in social services.

The students cleaned 37 flats and repainted the doors and gates of two units.

The residents were very grateful for the students' help, said New Hope Community Services' social worker Dorothy Low. "They also took great care of the elderly residents, by moving the sofas out of the flats so that the elderly residents could rest outside while they did the hard work inside," she said.

Besides cleaning up homes and delivering food, Comm.UnitySG has also come up with several creative ways to raise more than $25,700 on approved digital platform Giving.sg for New Hope Community Services.

During the circuit breaker, they organised an online gaming tournament where all participating fees collected - $10 per person - were donated to the charity.

The volunteers also persuaded their friends who are online vendors, as well as other businesses, to donate a percentage of their business profits - ranging from 20 per cent to 80 per cent - to the charity. These donors include home-grown artist Aiman Azhar, and online clothing stores Sanctrie and megan&laura.

Now that schools have reopened, Harrison and Sricharan are back at their usual routines, including preparing for their International Baccalaureate Diploma examinations this year.

But one thing is clear: They are not about to stop serving the community and Comm.UnitySG will organise more volunteer sessions.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on June 08, 2020, with the headline Students moved to help the needy after chance encounter. Subscribe