12 years and counting: a story of perseverance and setbacks
An interview with Xin Yuan Community Care
It has become a familiar sight by now. An inconspicuous location on the ground level of an equally inconspicuous building. A façade displaying colourful posters flanking brown shutters, promoting a healthy regime for the aged. The sound of muffled karaoke emitting from the gates.
I peered in, and saw a rounded man bumbling forward to invite me in. “Singapore flooding today ah?”, quipped Uncle Desmond as he examined my slippers.
The place was Xin Yuan Community Care, a partner of bantu that is located in Toa Payoh. I remembered the first meeting between the two sides; one step into the centre and I was transported back in time. I saw old folks browsing the papers and making light conversations in the open area, not unlike the community corners at the HDB void deck (a rare sight nowadays). On the right was the staff area, entirely unsegregated from the rest of the open area without glass walls nor barricades.
In that first meeting, I learnt that the centre services about 250 elderlies and 40 youths, with activities ranging from health check ups to tuition and mentoring programmes. Which was a modest number, until we learnt how all these are managed with only three full-time staff.
There is Uncle Desmond, an outspoken and shrewd social-service veteran who decided to quit his day-job 12 years ago and set up the centre in Toa Payoh. With him are two very able admin staff, as well as a group of part-time nurses, outsourced coaches, and volunteers.
Two months after we first met, I am back to interview the Xin Yuan team.
But not Uncle Desmond himself. Instead, I turned my attention to the other two unsung heroes, the two very able full-time staff who have dedicated themselves to keeping the ship afloat.
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Si Min and Kristin have been with the Xin Yuan team for 1.5 years and 7 months respectively. Being in a small team, they must do everything: planning flag donations, executing CSR projects, even cooking food for the elderly folks who visit every morning.
The experience has certainly stretched them: not only do they have to perform the organisational work relating to Xin Yuan, they often had to fill in positions where they lacked volunteers or finances. Take the Xin Yuan website for example: “we had to design and maintain the whole thing ourselves, because no one else was available to do it.”
The pair certainly run much of the show. With age catching up on Uncle Desmond, the two have grown accustomed to taking on more leadership decisions over time, such as screening CSR projects and expanding existing programmes.
It is at this juncture that I must emphasis the two very able ladies are only in their early 20s. “I’m turning 24 this year, but not yet.” “Oh and I’m younger than her.”
So an entire community of elderlies and youths are being supported by an aging man and two girls younger than myself. What am I doing with my life again?
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Operating a non-profit independently is oft a struggle, and the two have met their fair share of difficulties and disappointments. Si Min could recall many instances when the centre could not recruit enough members to flag for donations on their behalf, or when volunteers failed to show up after over-promising on what their application.
“The reality is that we are a small centre. Very few people want to work with us because we do not have a big name. Many prefer to help out at established organisations for which they have something to show for at the end of it.”
In my earlier visits, Uncle Desmond recounted how a volunteer had once promised to conduct baking lessons for the elderly as part of Xin Yuan’s afternoon line-up of enrichment activities. After multiple discussions over details of such sessions, a very costly oven was purchased. Invites were sent out to the elderlies and everyone eagerly anticipated the day.
The volunteer never showed up. The sessions were repeatedly delayed, until Si Min and Kristin decided they had enough — the two rolled up their sleeves and conducted the baking lessons themselves instead. Which, of course, meant they had to learn baking overnight, having no experience with the finer points of raising dough.
It was heart-breaking for all involved, and the harsh (and expensive) lesson brought with it a heavy dose of reality to the nature non-profit work. There would be other instances of volunteers backing out of previous commitments, and the Xin Yuan team learnt to anticipate such setbacks over time.
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Xin Yuan needs to grow its volunteer base: as with all non-profits, volunteers are the lifeblood of the centre.
Si Min emphasised that point when she said “we need volunteers to sustain some of our programmes. When we have volunteers, we do not need to require ourselves to run the programmes.”
Unfortunately, the team cannot recruit and nurture its pool of volunteers if they are too preoccupied running the programmes themselves. Neither can the team pull themselves away from the programmes if there are no volunteers available to to substitute for them. It’s a classic Catch-22.
The team also requires more volunteers for its fundraisers and flag days. It is easy to dismiss the magnitude of each coin donation, but Xin Yuan tells me that every flag day contributes $30,000 to $40,000 of funds on average. I was surprised to learn that a full can of assorted coins actually totals in at about $500 — that is really something for a day’s work.
And really, really important to sustain a small non-profit like Xin Yuan. The funds are channelled into nursing care for the elderly, subsidised tuition for needy children, youth mentoring, and other senior enrichment programmes such as morning exercises and cooking sessions.
While many of these programmes could possibly be staffed by volunteers, the lack of committed volunteers means many services have to be hired instead. This extends to both groups of beneficiaries under Xin Yuan.
“We do give an allowance to the tutors. $20 an hour, below the market rate.”
In the absence of a dedicated team of volunteers, Xin Yuan must therefore continue to rely of public donations to keep its programmes running.
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Running a non-profit like Xin Yuan has not been easy for the small full-time team. There have been years where public funding proved insufficient to cover the expenses of their operations, and the lack of volunteers has added a considerable workload to the already lean staff. Everyone is visibly stretched to the brim.
And yet, Xin Yuan has stuck around for 12 long years. Very impressively, they have operated without any government funding since being founded in 2005. The team itself has been through thick and thin with a revolving cast of staff, but each addition to Xin Yuan has allowed the organisation to grow and sustain itself through the years — slowly, but surely.
Si Min began at Xin Yuan as a full-time staff one and a half years ago. Kristin started out as a volunteer, and joined the team early this year. When asked what keeps them going despite the multiple challenges, Si Min quipped: “when you see the beneficiary happy to receive what they get, you will feel happy too.”
So where do they see Xin Yuan in a year’s time? For Kristin, she hopes Xin Yuan would be able to expand in capacity and capabilities.
“(Moving forward), we hope to get more members so that our programmes can become better. That will free up more time for us to concentrate on running the organisation.”
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My conversation with Si Min and Kristin has brought me to witness a side of non-profits I do not often witness in Singapore. Having been frequently exposed to large and successful charities, non-profits like Xin Yuan were novelties in my limited understanding on the local social service sector. Unlike most organisations who do not have to worry about continuity, Xin Yuan does its best to bring in what it can get, and serve the community one day at a time.
Despite the sobering realities of being a small non-profit, Xin Yuan is a place that holds a lot of heart and faith for both beneficiaries and volunteers. Nobody knows what tomorrow may bring — but having come this far, why not hope for the possibilities that lie in ahead?
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Programmes by Xin Yuan Community Care: volunteering opportunities
Tuition for students aged 7–16: the children typically come from lower-income families, some with a single parent. Most parents have completed high school or lower. Many have more than 1 sibling, but do not get much attention at home because both parents are working. Xin Yuan needs more tutors in order to expand the current programme from 30 tutees, and tutors need to commit to regular sessions with the students.
Senior enrichment programmes: Xin Yuan works with about 250 elderlies, providing them various services such as health screenings, physiotherapy, senior workouts, and a variety of enrichment activities. Currently, there is a critical shortage of volunteers to help out with the enrichment programmes, with the full-time staff filling in for most of the sessions.
Ad hoc events: you can volunteer with Xin Yuan at their annual Flag Day this year, on 3rd March (Saturday). Or why not volunteer with them on a special 10th anniversary dinner on 1st July (Sunday)?
