Our Singaporean Children

(My reflections from 6th August exhibition at Kebun Baru exploring how the environment impacts a child growing up in a Public Rental Scheme housing flat)

I would like to thank the students from Singapore Polytechnic Media, arts, and design school — Applied Drama and Psychology — Shandrick, Illham, Syafiqah, Alice, Serene, and Ain. Their lecturers Mei Yee and Sukitha. Their volunteers for organising today’s session. Hooi Boon from Beyond Social Services for supporting the event and helping us with booking of the space. Kebun Baru CC, AMK TC and Advisor Henry Quek for allowing us to have the event here.

Why the topic?

At 6th Sense, we create moments of experience for the children of these two blocks. These moments are a safe space for our children to feel a sense of safety, to run, play and skate around, visit new environments such as nature reserves, and learn new skills in crafts, music, drama, and sports. We have been doing this for over three years and have had the opportunity to be welcomed into their homes, had meals, and played together, tried fixing laptops for home-based learning. Occasionally we also do get calls to solve their geometry problems. And then there are the same questions each week — will you be coming this weekend? What time? What will we be doing? And when we arrive, they ask us to stay on. Will you stay till 7 pm? How about 10 more minutes? And soon it is 8 pm. Will you come back tomorrow to play with us?

It is with this in mind that we questioned our role in their lives, why does this space and time with us matter to these children? Hence, we partnered up with Singapore Poly to explore this further. The students have worked diligently over the last three months to capture the narratives of our children and have presented it to all of us through the three themes. These themes are the reality for some 4,000 children, aged 18 and below, living in 1-room rental flats, and 18,000 children living in 2-room rental flats. These children are of some 50,000 families who are living under the approximately 269 Public Rental Scheme blocks.

Third spaces are an extension of their homes

A child needs a loving space, a nourishing environment, a world of exposure to get to know themselves better, to form their own identity. Yet the space they are given, a 44 square metre flats with one bedroom, living room, kitchen, and washroom, is inadequate to meet their evolving and growing needs. There is currently no cap imposed on the number of individuals who can live in a 2-room flat under the Family Scheme. Children share their space with other family members, often having more than 5 occupants living in the household, which crowds out their own personal space. At times, there are grandparents, parents and siblings, uncles, and aunts, sharing the space.

We are worried about the effects of homes with crowding, high levels of noise, and its effects on the children. As such there is a competition for space for everyone’s varied needs. Within a home the television set will be switched on, someone will be resting, and someone’s talking on the telephone. Our children too are trying to learn, complete their homework within the space. Crowding and the lack of individualised attention given to the children to grow up has often led to the children feeling unheard. The lack of engagement within one’s homes often leaves them feeling “bored” with computer games becoming an alternative way to keep themselves engaged.

Children hence often seek an alternative environment which can provide for their growing needs, and resort to spending time outside of their homes, in search of a safe space. Thus, the corridors, staircases, void decks, playgrounds become an extension of their homes. These are referred to as Third Spaces and children see these spaces as an extension of their own homes.

• The corridors are where children learn to walk, kick the soccer wall around, learn to cycle while their sibling helps them balance. All of this while squeezing through the many flowerpots, shoe racks, Grab and Deliveroo delivery bags, and prayer altars.
• The staircases are where they have their kopi heart to heart talk, record their TikTok videos, and race one another up and down. At 6th Sense we have had countless block catching sessions with the kids screaming when they are about to be caught.
• These void decks and playground are where we have had our 6th Sense sessions. There are so many memories attached to this space. How we transform it through placing mats on the floor for children who want to do drawing, while setting up cones for those who want to rollerblade. Trying to create a space for each child to be able to grow in the space we have.

Recommendations:

1. Changing our perspective: My dream is that we start seeing such amenities around a child’s home as their home. That we start to appreciate these spaces as not just places of transitory motion but rather places impacting a child’s growth and development, space which shapes their thinking and keeps them emotionally safe. Thus, can we start to develop the space with a heavier view on its impact on a child’s life?
2. Could there be 3-room rental flats allotted to families with children instead of 1 and 2 room flats? These flats work well for a family a couple or grandparents living together, but it is inadequate for families. More effort should be made to study the impact of how such structural barriers impact a child over their lifetime outcomes.
3. It is vital to also take a neighbourhood, community approach where connections are built amongst various stakeholders such as schools, early childhood centres, and social service agencies. This will allow for a more complete understanding of a community and allow for a more localised thought process on what success looks like. At the core, it is vital to have the community itself champion what success looks like, and the community’s aspirations are vital. For example, with the community’s support there could be community members who organise tuition classes at the RC, relieving the SSA or RC staff members to other duties. Building on this point, there needs to a larger befriender presence at all rental blocks in Singapore. These befrienders should be there to aid in a child’s development, curate activities to engage and broaden their horizon, provide homework support. More than these functional roles, befrienders aid in providing a trusted presence in the children’s lives.
4. Philanthropists too could look at developing the sector in its entirety at a national scale by providing funding for organisational development and manpower costs, building of an evidence-based impact model, and taking a holistic approach. On the latter, it is vital that impact for example, that if a program aims to improve the education outcomes of a child, it pays attention to understanding all influences and attitudes in the child’s life.

Conclusion

Last month I was invited by Straits Times to pen my thoughts on meritocracy. They quoted me but missed out my larger point. As we think about refreshing the social compact, about targeted support for all members of our society, we should pay attention to what is happening in the micro moments of one’s life. There needs to be a focus on understanding ground narratives, e.g., conversations which are impacting a child’s life day in day out.

While there has been a focus on early childhood education, and presence of many beneficial schemes such as The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund, bursaries, and awards, these have largely focussed on affecting a child’s academic performance within the school environment. There should be a renewed focus on trying to cohesively impact a child’s life in all their spaces. Furthermore, there should be a conversation on what a diversity of talents might look like within this space and how there could be a structured way to allow for its development.

It is a tough life growing up in these flats, and we need to recognise the long-term effects these have on our children, on Singapore’s children. No matter how much effort we are putting in early childhood education for example, my hypothesis is that just living in these flats counter and erode the effects of such efforts. Change starts here, one conversation, and one square metre at a time.

Thank you.