Four years on, the Chaulagain family in Nepal are finally rebuilding their lives after the devastating 2015 earthquake that destroyed their

Adding a new TV, washing machine and standing fans to their 4-room flat used to seem like an extravagant luxury that 63-year-old Mdm Kng couldn't afford to give her family of 6. This was back when she used to spend about $1,000 every month fixing wires and appliances damaged by rats that were running amok in their home. If this story sounds familiar to you, it should. We last saw Mdm Kng seven months ago at her Boon Lay Drive flat where she lives with her husband and four gra

To most people, home is a refuge. But what happens when the home becomes a pressure point in the family and barrier to receiving essential social support? This was the case for 70-year-old Mrs Ng and her 50-year-old son Peter, who suffered a stroke in his 30s. Years of caregiver stress has taken its toll on this small family unit, resulting in a cluttered house that has led to rising tensions between them. On top of a cluttered living environment, their home developed a bed b

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” — African Proverb. From March 31 to 6 April 2019, I got the chance to lead a team of individual volunteers on a 5-day build trip to Battambang in Cambodia. We worked alongside a young couple, Voeury and Channy, who lived with their two young sons (the youngest only 6 months old!), their elderly mother and elderly aunt. Their house, made of palm leaves and old zinc (pictured below), would leak whenever it

As women everywhere were championing female rights on International Women's Day, Hesti only had 1 wish: to bring her children back under one roof and live as a family again. “I need this house so that I can be reunited with my children," said the 41-year-old single mother. Working as a seamstress in a garment factory in Batam, Hesti's salary was barely enough to provide for her two children. Her son, 15, lives with his grandparents on another island altogether on West Sumatra

"How did the house get to this state?" It's one of the most common questions we're asked when we talk to potential partners and the public at advocacy events about Project HomeWorks. And as all our volunteers would know, there's never a simple answer. Vulnerability is not a state that anyone consciously crosses into overnight; it starts slow. For 77-year-old Mdm Chow (pictured right), working and caring for her 54-year-old daughter May Leng, who was born with Cerebral Palsy,

Take an elderly family who has lived in the same house and amassed a collection of things from the past 30 years. De-cluttering their house during Project HomeWorks is like opening up a time capsule of a version of Singapore that people haven't seen in decades. There's also nothing quite like uncovering these vintage finds to bridge the generation gaps between our elderly who lived & breathed the era of analog, the sandwich generation who were transitioning to digital and the

"Every night I sleep, I hear them squeak." The worst part about rats infesting their house for 3 years was not the sounds they made at night. To Mdm Kng, it was the damage they left in their wake after scurrying around the house. “I bought a lot of the Mortein (household insecticide) to spray, and I just keep spraying. Some die but they still keep coming back. The troublesome thing was the rats keep biting & spoiling my things like the cupboard, electrical wires... I had to c

Mr Bahtarim, together with his wife and 3-year-old son, in front of their completed Habitat house (April 2018) If the home is a building block for a better life, Mr Bahtarim’s family have built a home beyond their dreams and climbed several rungs up the ladder towards securing a more stable, healthier future. Back in August 2017 when a team of Singapore volunteers first met Mr Bahtarim in Batam, the site where his future house stood was a typical construction site. A tarp hun

“I made up my mind already… I will not keep collecting things… I can live in Ren Ci for about 5 months without all the things. So when I come back, why should I want all these things to live with me?”, reflected Uncle Loh as he watched student volunteers from SMU sort and pack his things. Thrift-shopping, which had started out as a hobby for Uncle Loh, had turned him into a serial collector. Over the years, it also made his home in Toa Payoh unsafe for him to live in. After