Mr Steven Goh, Founder of Helping Joy
Our Helping Joy Ambassadors, Partners, and Volunteers
Ladies & Gentlemen
Introduction
- Good evening. I am happy to join you all at Helping Joy's 2024 Fundraising Dinner.
- 大家晚上好，非常高兴能够出席今晚的晚宴。
- 首先感谢 建麟，Irene，和“助乐” 慈善机构的所有义工们为了帮助弱势群体和年长者所付出的努力。
- 囤积杂物对屋主和邻居的健康和安全构成了威胁。
- 可是要解决囤积杂物这个问题其实并不简单，所以政府必须和社会福利组织、社区团体和慈善机构、基础组织、企业等各方面伙伴齐心协力，一起帮助这些群体。
- 我也要感谢所有的捐赠者，多年来一直支持“助乐”。希望大家可以继续慷慨解囊，付出你们的宝贵时间，才华与资金，帮助更需要帮助的人。让我们一起打造一个更有爱心、更加包容性的新加坡。
- Let me continue in English. I would like to thank Helping Joy for your dedication to helping the vulnerable, including elderly who live alone in Singapore. Some of these seniors may suffer from certain conditions that cause them to hoard things in their homes. As a result, they live in cluttered environments or unhealthy conditions. You have been working closely with many groups, with Government agencies and social service organisations, to provide them with a clean and liveable environment. In short, what you do is to help them reclaim their homes, reclaim their lives, and reclaim their dignity.
- I had the privilege to meet Steven about two years ago because we were looking for partners to help us solve this very serious problem of hoarding.
- I joined Helping Joy for a few of their decluttering and cleaning projects, and saw first-hand the meaningful work they do. I still remember my first session with them in August 2023 in Boon Lay.
- The living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms were almost completely filled from floor to ceiling: bags of spare parts, household appliances, wires, books, tools, clothing, and more. Apart from some space for sleeping and to move around, items were hoarded from wall to wall.
- Thanks to the very hard work by this passionate group of volunteers from Helping Joy, our senior’s home was finally decluttered, cleaned, repainted and repaired. This took an entire day. It made a lot of difference that the elderly aunty agreed to let us clear her home, and that her daughter had reached out for help. What we saw that day was not just the physical labour of love – it was also the outcome of many months of befriending, to build trust and establish a genuine relationship with the resident, and make her feel comfortable enough to go through such a big transition. My appreciation to the Helping Joy team, as well as the other volunteers in the grassroots, Town Council, and many others, including the Town Council cleaners, for their support.
- Hoarding poses health and safety risks to homeowners and their neighbours. It is a complex issue that the Government cannot solve alone.
Creating Social Impact
- By 2030, around one in four Singaporeans will be aged 65 and above. With this ageing pattern, we should expect that there will be more of such cases of seniors living alone, or elderly couples whose homes have been taken over by hoarding. If we want to reclaim their lives back for them in their living spaces, we will need to work much more closely together.
- Frontline organisations like Helping Joy, supported by a whole constellation of organisations, such as contractors, recycling organisations, grassroots, medical and social workers, and healthcare workers, can all work more closely together so that we will be in a better position to look after our seniors.
- When I spoke to Steven and Irene, they told me that the only cure to hoarding is love. Every home they clear, they will keep visiting every month, and every senior whose home they cleared becomes their family. They visit, they connect, and they build trust to the end of days, and that is the only solution.
Closing
- Let’s work together – the going will be tough in the years ahead as Singapore becomes a superaged society, but if we work together, we will be able to make sure that every senior has a home that befits the contributions of their generation.
- Thank you very much.