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