By Lin Shiyun
Edited by Ashley Chean and Lin Shiyun
In January 2024, five students from Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) followed their instincts and chose to carry out their Service-Learning (SL) Project at Tak Takut Kids Club (TTKC). This decision required them to break from the tradition of running pre-planned programs and convince their teachers to support their approach. Over six months, they spent time weekly with the community, learning about the children, their environment, their challenges, and building relationships one step at a time.
What have they learned about themselves, the community and community work during this journey? Let’s hear from Ashton, Colin, Elijah, Jake, and Shane!
Collin, Shane, Elijah, Jake and Ashton (left to right) at the entrance of TTKC art studio.
Shiyun: How did you guys discover and choose TTKC?
Elijah: It was a Friday afternoon, sitting at a bench in school. We had this volunteering subject and wanted to work with children. So we spent like an hour or so just surfing the Internet. By sheer luck, we came across TTKC and we made an impulse decision to come down to Boon Lay after school.
We came about 04:00 p.m. Cynthia (community worker) told us about Getai and a random bunch of kids invited us to the community dinner. We were quite taken aback by the hospitality. I think that was like the defining moment. While making our pasta we realised it's a very wholesome community. Many people come together to do something significant and to form significant bonds with each other. It was not something that we had expected when we were trying to search for people to work with.
Shane: Yeah, I was very shocked that you have a Getai every Friday, woah, we can have a performance every week. I did not think that the kids would be so willing to do this.
Left: After dinner, the community gathers for Getai, a weekly performing arts platform where children are encouraged to showcase their own performances.
Right: Every Friday, the children at TTKC prepare dinner for 40 people to serve the community.
Shiyun: When you came for the actual befriending week on week, did the experience match your expectations?
Elijah: Conventionally, student volunteers will propose programmes to the centre. Then they'll go down and facilitate activities: introduction, activity, then reflections. That has merit because it is a tradition that has been passed down for so long, but we felt that it was very refreshing to see how TTKC operates, because it's a lot more child-centric. It was mentioned to us at the start that we are here to support and co-create with them. Quite nice.
Ashton: One of the first challenges that we met with was trying to balance what we wanted to achieve here while also fulfilling the volunteering requirements.
Elijah: I think quantifying the results of community services is challenging because a lot of it is about personal connections. It can be dehumanising to turn these experiences into statistics that we need cold hard numbers for people to see.
Shiyun: The whole point about community service is first being committed to spending time. Often we will have student groups that will come for the first few weeks and after that they just oh, somebody is busy with this, somebody will be busy that. For your group, though everybody is very busy, you kept a very regular, committed presence, weekly for six months! This kind of basic commitment is something that is hard for us to come by when it comes to student volunteers.
Shane: I actually enjoyed the experience: every Saturday I come, and just talk, draw and build with them. This is very relaxing for me and I don't need to think about anything else, but just to immerse myself with the children.
Elijah: The kids are very good at teaching us the power of fun.
At the initial stage, the student volunteers spend most of their time understanding and immersing themselves in community life by having fun together with the children. (Top left) Colin plays board games with the children in the art studio. (Top right) Ashton and Jake install “Darren”, the garden mascot with other volunteers. (Bottom left) Elijah prepares snacks with the children in the community kitchen. (Bottom right) Jake and Shane paint a festival mural with a child in the art studio.
Shiyun: How do you fold in teachable moments for the children while they are having fun?
Colin: I remember when we played football with R. He had no awareness that he was making his brother run for the ball and he was anyhow kicking the ball out. So it actually wasn't very fun for the other party or for me, because I ended up kicking it for him. I had to go in and teach him about playing with each other, and be more aware of his own actions and how his actions affect others. When the children learn to be more aware, they also have more fun because it's more fun for everyone. Then they keep the game playing even longer.
Shiyun: Do you see that it is lacking in the community, an awareness of others?
Ashton: While they might not display it all the time, the kids certainly have the capacity to show a lot of empathy and care. It's just that you need to probe them a bit more, give them opportunity and a platform to show it. A lot of these kids put up a very strong front, but in reality, they are all very caring.
Elijah: For me, one of these instances of this was when we went to buy fruit. There's always a very big dilemma for the children: whether I should get the food I like or I should get the fruit that I know everyone else will. It seems very comedic, but it's honestly something that is one of these platforms for creating socio-emotional awareness, because they have to think about all their friends, who likes what and how should people do the greater good.
I feel as a whole, the programmes that are here all have opportunities for the kids to care: It's just whether or not we maximise the opportunity to find the good in everything that we do, and bring out their best.
Shane: I remember we were in the kitchen, cutting watermelon. The children were telling me how to cut it, but they cut it really thinly or in really weird pieces. It isn’t the best way for watermelon: you want like, chunks, not thin tiny pieces. (laughs) At the same time I didn't want to tell them they must cut into triangles and such. Of course you can cut whatever way you want; some like squares, some like bigger pieces. No need to standardise. So, every plate has their own shape when they share it with everyone else, they feel very proud of their own creations.
Shiyun: In their home environment or in their school, the children’s autonomy may not be respected. We try to enable everyone to express themselves as a full person. And of course when they express themselves there is chaos, but we allow that to happen and co-create with them so that the self is also present in the community. The focus on child’s autonomy is why things are kind of done quite differently here at TTKC.
Left: Elijah listens to the children explain their selection during a shopping trip to the nearby supermarket.
Right: Ashton and Elijah support a child in processing his emotions and thoughts when he got upset over lost bullets. At the initial stage, the student volunteers were concerned about violence when they saw children playing with guns. Over time, they learned to engage with them and incorporate teachable moments.
Shiyun: After six months here, what is your relationship with the kids like?
Colin: A likes to find me to talk about anything on his mind, from worries about National Service or the fact that he wants to study in poly, or the fact that he wants to go Korea and find a wife.
Shiyun: Long term goal. (laughs)
Colin: We only have contact time for four, five hours a week so I can't really fully connect with them deeply. But I think that on the surface we have quite a few relationships. Like when I stand there they will ask ‘TEACHER CAN I PLAY BADMINTON’ (laughs)
Ashton: When they see me they say hello. I feel that it's quite nice to see them acknowledge my presence because it also shows that they remember me. I take up a very small space in their heart.
Jake: We have a better grasp of what each kid likes, and therefore like when we interact with them like we can better guide them in a direction. Basically like, speak their lingo.
Shiyun: You planned an excursion with a small group of children after spending a few months with the community. Would you have planned the excursion project differently if you hadn’t known them?
Elijah: Definitely. I’ll use K as an example. He likes to feel empowered. He likes that sense of agency about what he's doing. I think knowing the children matters a lot more when you're going out with them, actually, because you can appeal to the instincts unique to each child.
Ashton: Right. I think for K, it was very nice to see him proactively taking that lead. He was actually the oldest in the group and he was very automatically very protective and caring towards the younger ones. It wasn't something that we explicitly told him, the oldest should look out for the younger ones. He was effectively a mini leader.
Elijah: For another child, we will have to actively affirm and encourage him to continue taking initiative through positive interactions and affirmative action.
Shiyun: You have actually become more child-centric. You're attuned to how each child thinks and feels, you know their learning needs and when they can shine.
Left: Student volunteers discuss excursion plans with the children, facilitating decision-making processes in deciding where and how to implement the activities.
Right: The group spends an afternoon at Gardens by the Bay.
Shiyun: Is there something you wish to accomplish at TTKC that you have not done yet?
Ashton: Academic health. We spoke about this before, but because of timing we couldn’t come down to support the children for their school work. It would be good to support them more in developing literacy and numeracy skills.
Colin: I really wanted to actually teach them the proper skills and rules in Badminton, and I am very proud of the fact that I convinced D that the net actually exists. (laughs) I feel like we should try to teach them to improve their skills because if they just keep the same modified rules, then the skills are going to have a cap and they can't really experience the entire game. It's actually not that fun because for one point, they can play ten times (laughs). They then get bored very easily. So I think it's good that we can really try and push them slowly out of their comfort zone.
Shiyun: Every Wednesday they have a programme by Sportscare. Very recently the team sports changed to badminton and the children really hated it at the start. I think that it's a game that really requires pushing their individual skills and resilience, which is not comfortable for them.
Ashton: I think in school, it's very hard to make sure that everyone learns at the pace that suits them. So it can feel suffocating for the children to keep having to keep up with the standards. When they come to TTKC, it's kind of a platform for the children to feel free and be themselves. I think that's what we need to balance alongside them, feeling free and also acknowledging that there are standards which they can be capable of reaching at their own pace.
Left: The children learn to properly maintain the sports equipment to ensure it is well taken care of.
Right: Ashton supports a youth who brought her school work to TTKC to seek help.
Shiyun: What is your biggest takeaway from being involved in TTKC?
Ashton: I think it was very, very eye-opening. I really didn't expect to see a lot of the things: not just here at TTKC, but the neighbourhood around Boon Lay. It's not like our very homogeneous school or like a very sheltered environment. There's a lot more to it and it's very rich and very diverse. I think I've also come to understand more about what it means to build a community because we are in the student council and I always talk about how we want to strengthen school culture and school community, but it's very difficult to do. And I think being here in TTKC allows us to see, oh, what exactly does it take to build a community? It's a lot more about the one-to-one relationships that you build and a lot more about the experiences and the shared memories rather than specifically what you're doing. A lot more people-centric.
Colin: I've learned that we must try our best to do a lot more for people who are a bit more disadvantaged. It was a very unfortunate realisation that our system may not enable everyone to fulfil their best potential. There's a lot that we need to do to make sure that those who are left behind don't completely fall off the wagon.
Shane: I learned to be happier through immersing myself with the community, or like seeing how some of the children’s lives can actually be so simple, and honestly, how my life can be very simple also. We take things very seriously and then I lose out on that fun and joy and being present.
Ashton : I think it's broadened my perspective.I realised Singapore is so small, but everyone's so different. I think it's just cool to see the TTKC community. It's very tight, it's very bonded.
Elijah: During the birthday anniversary, you just see how everyone's helping each other. I didn't know this guy, but he was just teaching me how to roast satay. After the entire party, we came together to do back breaking labour to mop the court, then everyone was just there to help each other out. Like everyone saying, oh, let's do it together. So everyone helps each other and, that's really something that we can have more in our lives or in our society, or neighbourhood community. Individually, I realised that sometimes we don’t have to look so big, look so broad, sometimes you just look at the small things, that can really make someone's day become more memorable. It's like just laughing at how we got a shuttlecock stuck in the tree. I feel like the children are very lucky to have this place.
Colin: There's a very strong sense of community here. You can live in different blocks, but everyone identifies as part of this big family. So, it's something very unique. I think it'll be quite cool if every neighbourhood had a TTKC.
Left: Elijah leads a group of children to collect trash in the neighbourhood.
Right: Shane shares the BBQ pit with the children.
Shiyun: What's the advice you would give to your juniors taking over this project?
Ashton: Don't have a plan (laughs). When you come in with expectations and a plan you are sort of limited very clearly by what you expect. If we had gone ahead with the organisation that our seniors worked with last year, what would most likely have happened would be we just carry on doing what they did and what they had done was what the previous batch had done. So it was really very refreshing to break out of this cycle and go in like half blind and see where life takes us.
Colin: Learn from the kids, because you can learn a lot just from regular conversation. it's just stuff like so much more than school. Teaches lessons you can never get anywhere else.
Ashton: I think one other thing would be to have an open mind. Not just being open to different things but also, opening your perspective as well. In classes, sometimes we listen to the teacher and we’re like, oh, this is useless, this is useful, then we automatically start filtering. But if we just absorb everything and then synthesise it, I feel like that's a lot more helpful than filtering all our prejudices.
Shane: Just have fun lorh. Just relax with the kids and enjoy yourself. Having fun is a very meaningful way to spend our time together.
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