Our beginnings

We started this project in 2014 because we had hoped that one day, every elderly in Singapore can experience the protection, love and care of a family. Tri-Generational HomeCare was started with the hope of bringing the elderly, young adults and youth together as a family where there is mutual learning, understanding and care.

While rotating through the hospitals as medical students, we noticed that patients with tightly knitted families tended to do better. They had family members who would advocate for them, care for them and be with them through the entire journey. We did not grow up in the earlier days of Singapore where the Kampung spirit was strong, but we heard stories about how the community was so tightly knitted that neighbours would chip in to care for the vulnerable or those without families who are residing among them. We hope that we can bring back this community spirit with TriGen. However, the elderly are not just people who need to be cared for, we believe they are a rich source of experience and they are our link back to our past and heritage.

Besides the elderly, we have the youths in our project. We believe they are a force to be reckoned with. They are energetic, idealistic, creative and most importantly, they are our future. We want to empower them through our project by equipping them with caregiving skills, problem-solving skills and inculcating community-spirit within them. We hope that they can learn from the experience of the healthcare students and the elderly they serve.

Also, we have our aspiring healthcare students who serve as the bridge between the youth and the elderly. We hope that as they lead the teams in caring for the elderly, they will be able to apply what they have learned in school and be role models to the youths.

With these ideas, we formed a team of volunteers from National University of Singapore and approached different organizations to ask if we could volunteer with them. Eventually, we met up with Crystal Teng and Mayor Teo Ho Pin from North West Community Development Council (NWCDC) who linked us up with Dr Wong Sweet Fun and Lydia Chin from Khoo Teck Puat Hospital Ageing-In-Place programme (AIP). The KTPH AIP and NWCDC teams were keen for us to pilot the project with their patients and residents. The final piece to the puzzle would be to find secondary schools who will be keen to collaborate with us. We were first given a chance to publicize at an award ceremony organised by NWCDC. After talking to 50 teachers and parents, we had a grand total of 3 sign-ups. Our target was 90 secondary school students. Disappointed, we left the event. We shared this with Crystal and Mayor Teo who provided another opportunity for us. As there was an upcoming principal engagement session, Mayor Teo provided us with a 5 minutes session to pitch our project to the various principals in the North. Nervous, we prepared extremely hard for this pitch. After sharing with the principals, we were surprised by the overwhelming positive response we received. With this, TriGen was born and we never looked back.

Looking back at these 6 years, it has been an absolute privilege to journey with the many passionate volunteers in TriGen to build this TriGen family. It has been an honour to be given the opportunity to enter the lives of the many older people who have taught us priceless lessons. It is our dream that intergenerational learning and ties can be strengthened, and we can bring out the Kampung spirit in Singapore. Nuclear families may be becoming smaller, but with our Kampung spirit and strong intergenerational ties, we can have a bigger community “family”. No one needs to age alone.

Sincerely,

Kennedy and Angeline