Reflections on Field Trip to Willing Hearts

The day at Willing Hearts started with a trip first down to the kitchens where we had a behind-the-scenes look at the preparation of food. It was a spectacular sight as we get to observe exactly how huge the operations are just so that beneficiaries will not go starving. The number of volunteers that are present is huge and it was heart-warming to know that students were also there to help out in the cause. As we talked to a few of the volunteers at Willing Hearts, we got to know more about the beneficiaries and the amount of help that they receive from others to continue their operations.

With the new understanding in how the day-to-day operations are like, we helped to load up the packed food and headed out to help distribute the food. At each and every stop that we went to, it was hard to identify the people that required the food had it not been pointed out to us. These elderly were just every single one of us. There was nothing on them that identified them as those needing help. They were just like any other ordinary person you see on the street.

After distributing the food, we had the opportunity to take a look at the living conditions of the underprivileged. It seemed as though there was an effort to hide the true situation of those living in those rental flats as the corridors were constantly being cleaned by cleaners. As I've visited these, whilst it didn't strike me that the living conditions were small in size, it struck me that there was little or almost no help given to them.

This trip made me think whether the social security nets set up by our government is truly enough and whether there are enough help being given to those that have fallen through the cracks in the social security nets. It was definitely an eye-opening experience for me and I will definitely keep this experience close to me.

Lim Bing Le

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