Students Aim To Help Tissue Peddlers In Singapore By Nurturing Wholesome Relationships
When going about our daily lives, we often come across elderly uncles and aunties waiting at MRT stations, hoping to sell us tissue packets.
Oftentimes we pass them by without sparing much of a thought.
A group of Yale-NUS students hence realised that tissue peddlers are a community that is often overlooked by charities.
So, they decided to take things into their own hands, by incepting The Signpost Project (TSP).
The group befriended and distributed care packages to tissue paddlers, hoping to spread awareness of this community’s needs.
Students distribute care packages to tissue peddlers
In early March, members of TSP hustled to put together bundles of care packages for tissue peddlers.
Image courtesy of The Signpost
With the help of Temasek Trust’s oscar@sg fund, they were able to put together some 100 care packages, each containing masks, hand sanitiser, sunscreen, and a poncho.
Image courtesy of The Signpost
Then on 20 Mar, they set out to distribute the packages to tissue-selling aunties and uncles who were regularly seen in Clementi and Jurong East.
Along the way, they befriended these vulnerable groups and learnt their stories, in hopes of highlighting them to relevant social agencies.
This isn’t the first time they’re doing this. Just recently in February, the TSP team had walked the streets and befriended more tissue peddlers too.
Linking tissue peddlers up with relevant agencies
Distributing care packages is not all that TSP does. The youth-led group has high hopes for their initiative.
After hearing the stories of these tissue peddlers, the group realised many of them faced financial or employment difficulties.
For illustrative purposes only
Source
For many of these uncles and aunties, their problems could be alleviated or even solved by linking them up with the relevant social groups or agencies.
TSP aims to help bridge this gap for them so they no longer have to rely on selling tissues to get by.
Hope their efforts would inspire others
Kudos to this passionate group of students for taking up the important role of reaching out to the tissue uncles and aunties within our society.
The heart they have for this community can certainly be felt through their continued efforts and actions.
Hopefully, their enthusiasm for the cause will inspire others to be part of this initiative.
So if you’re interested in volunteering with them or simply hearing their stories, check them out here.
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Featured image adapted from Facebook and courtesy of The Signpost Project.
