Finding hope in homelessness

i

remember very clearly that there was

this one day

i was pushing my baby in a stroller with

my two young boys

in we were on the way to the atm as i

had to withdraw some cash to buy my

baby’s milk powder

when we reached the atm i opened up my

wallet

picked up my bank card and slotted it

into the machine

to my horror my bank account shows a

balance of

5.35 cents i couldn’t withdraw the money

i ended up leaving atm with no money

and i worried greatly for my baby’s next

feed

my turning pointy life came at this

moment

i was a single mother by this time and

whenever i look

at my children tears started to flood my

eyes

i know and understand that many things

need to change there aren’t

i told myself that i will not put any of

my children

nor myself in this position ever

again

it still remains a fact today that the

period of homelessness that i had to go

through

11 years ago is still happening to other

individuals and families to date

clearly we do have a structural flaw

present in our country

since 2010 i pulled all of my courage

to work on myself from the inside out

that journey forced me to reflect

reevaluate my beliefs and be more

observant of what is happening around me

oftentimes to transition out of the

general welfare system

of any country is to be gainfully

employed

to achieve financial independence

through hard work were often said

now to just share with you some context

the average cost of living for a

four-person family

in singapore is around four thousand

dollars

i spoke to many other families in my

neighborhood

all of them that i spoke to and whom i

got to befriend

are the most hard-working people i know

they hold 12 to 14 hours work days

and despite that i learned that they

earned

less than two thousand dollars per month

some of them have been dependent on

financial aid

on and off some of them have been

living in the rental flats for more than

a decade

reflecting back on myself

with the level of education that i had

and the jobs that i could secure

which can earn me a net take-home pay of

a thousand five hundred dollars per

month

this made me question the financial

independence

that the social workers i met often

speak about

back then my children and i were placed

in a social welfare system

where we receive 400 monthly in monetary

aid

apart from the need to move from one

temporary shelter

to another i met my social worker on

quarterly to monthly basis to review my

family situation

and the need to keep on receiving the

400

cash every month

often times during these reviews the

social worker will ask me

if i have found a job those reviews

were never easy but what kept me going

was the vision that i had for my

children’s future

and i swore to myself that i will pay

forward

one fine day i

badly needed to rebuild my dignity

and gain the financial independence

i had to find means and ways to attain

what my small family needed

my pain coupled with the love for my

children

motivates me to push on

never undermine the determination of

a mother

so how did i do it

remember the day that i did not have

enough to buy my baby’s milk powder

that was the same day that i discovered

materials in the trash

which i converted into wearable art sold

it to passerbys at the void deck

and raised the money that i needed to

buy the meat powder

shortly after that i saw myself

investing part of the monetary aid

to buy a secondhand laptop and a dongle

that allows me access to the internet

this then brought me to a point in my

life

where i normally slept two hours or less

many days

those nights when my children are asleep

and with the help of youtube videos and

a free learning platform

like coursera i taught myself how to

code

how to create website and how to design

digital graphic

until we hours of the morning

at this point i discovered that i said

yes

to any opportunity i take on projects

that i

barely had experience in and learn how

to do it along the way

this never see thy attitude and the

fighting spirit that i’ve developed

helped me to discover and set up my

first

service business

i set up the virtual assistant service

with a childhood friend

and my younger sister

the three of us set out to provide

administrative

bookkeeping social media and client

relationship management

for other busy professionals business

owners

and startups i remember

our first office desk was actually my

four packs ekr dining table

in my 450 square feet rental home

when i first started the service

business i met

many new ceos they even told me

that this concept will not work in

singapore

as our labor market here is more

expensive comparing to our neighboring

countries in asia

or they told me that the businesses here

are much more traditional in their

staffing requirements

what they mean by traditional was that

the bosses will want

to see their staff clock in on every

working day

on time and to clock out with

usually unpaid over time

these nissans also told me that

no one can be productive working from

home

but hey look at what the global pandemic

has shown us today

six years since the founding of the

business

my small business has helped 88 women

the skills and expertise in providing

administrative and business operations

support

to other companies in singapore asia

australia and even europe

we helped over 250 companies

grow their business salvaged contracts

and handled 30 million operations

when i first started this service

business

it stems from my many frustrations

i faced countless discrimination

when i was a single mother looking for a

job

i also had three young children to care

for

i did not enough i did not have enough

money for child care

and had to find ways to put food on the

table while being there to care

for my children little did i know

that the business that i initially built

for my family

will go on to help other women to do

their own work

in their own home while being there to

care for their own children or elderly

parents

60 of my virtual assistants are single

mothers

but not all of them are young and not

all of these

women are mothers or married

natalie was one of the virtual

assistants who

is single unmarried

and is in her late 40s

she used to be the general manager in

her previous employment with a

multinational corporation here

in singapore natalie

chose to leave her career to be the

primary caregiver

for her aged mother

with the flexible hours as a virtual

assistant

natalie was able to juggle between

caregiving

and bringing in a stream of income apart

from just

depending on her first depleting savings

or the

murder handouts from her other married

siblings

through the business and all that i had

to go through in life

i’ve developed a different way of seeing

the value that people can bring

regardless

of their background i’ve witnessed

the power of diverse experiences

and cultures now despite

all of our differences we

can be inclusive and help each other

even during the toughest moments of our

lives

change can happen when we embrace each

other

and bravely act on it

there is this favorite scene that goes

you

must be the change you want to see in

the world

at five dollars 35 cents

i started with me

now ask yourself this question

will there be a point in your life where

you feel like you hit rock bottom

and that fall strip you off your dignity

maybe will there be

naysayers who doesn’t believe in you or

your talent

and make you feel like you don’t have

any

of course there are will that stop

you from finding the solution for

yourself

or your loved ones in times of crisis

no it doesn’t which then leads me to

this very important question

so why are you living your life

based on someone else’s judgments

standards or bias

be brave be

bold thank you

you