Words from our volunteers
These are some of the reflections & testimonials from our committee members, university student volunteers (Team Leaders), as well as the secondary school student volunteers on their experience with our project.
Why the traveling, why the late nights, why all that planning? Those are questions I would sometimes ask myself after a long day that ended with a home visit. But whenever I think of the smiles we've put on the patient's faces with the care we've shown, and the looks of curiosity on the youngsters' faces whenever they encounter something new, the answers just came naturally. What makes the work of a team leader meaningful is exactly this element of service, which is to put others before oneself.
Jiang Bochao, Team Leader
Medicine, Year 4
My experience working with the 3G comm thus far has been nothing short of amazing. The passion and dedication of each committee member towards improving ourselves to better help others is truly admirable. I believe that Kennedy and Angeline have done a great job in inspiring us how we can improve the lives of others. Their great leadership is what brought us all together as one big happy family and I can’t help but feel the warmth and happiness every time we meet. There is much to learn from everyone in the committee about how they manage and approach problems and I am also grateful that I have this opportunity to learn how to motivate, inspire and lead a team effectively towards achieving a common goal.
Anthea Pau Jin En, Manpower & Training Committee
Pharmacy, Year 3
Through the recent home visit of Mdm K, I have a privilege of conversing with her. In the past, she could move and straightened her non-injured leg and could even stand with a walking stick as a support. Standing with one leg and a walking stick for support was to be a daily exercise for her. However, she stopped this exercise due to the lack of motivation and support. Now, her once good leg could barely move and she moves about in a wheelchair. When I converse with her, she told me she knew the reason of her pain and said she couldn’t prevent it from this tragic incident. Through this experience, I understood that an individual could not be solely responsible for his/her own good health. I find this VIA to be very meaningful as we could improve a patient’s health and lifestyle directly or indirectly. We can also learn to apply it on our own lives and ageing family members.
Aizat, Secondary School Volunteer
Before the project started, I did not think that I can interact with the elderly and this project is going to be a challenge for me. After this Tri-generational project, I learned how to interact with the elderly better. I also understand how the elderly feels and and the difficulty that they face while doing simple daily activity such as walking, sitting etc. My patient is Mr. Bala, he is a very outgoing person and like to share a lot of stories. I enjoyed my time there as I get to know them better and the more I visited them the stronger the bond between us.
I learn that being there with them is enough to make them smile; you do not have to do many things but just by being present with them and interacting with them is good enough to make them feel better. Especially when they faced some problems, challenges, and they need someone to talk. So be there for them. This will also prevent or reduces depression, as they will not feel alone. Through this, it has helped me to interact more with my own grandparents and I realize, how important they are to me.
I also learn that even if we grew older and older, we are still learning new things and wanting to explore more things. So is the same, the elderly are still wanting to learn new to things and that is what I see in Mr.Bala’s family. They actually took the effort to learn our commonly known childhood game that is UNO cards game. We actually taught them how to play and we played together in one of those visiting sessions. That is one of the fun sessions to me.
In every session, without fail we will do our temperature taking and the taking of blood pressure. After that we will given a chance to interact with them. I talk to Mr Bala’s mom more. At first it was awkward for me as I did not know what to say but as time when by it gets easier and easier for me to talk to her as I get to know her. It was fun knowing them. This project has made me value the importance of treasuring the elderly around us mainly our grandparents because we will never know when death will do us apart. I enjoyed my time through this project.
I really want to thank my TL Hui Yen and Elston for guiding us throughout this project and encouraging us to interact more. They have been really active and always bringing the positive atmosphere. They are very cheerful and always looking forward to seeing the elderly and us. So thank you for spending time with us, I really appreciate it.
Umairah, Orchid Park Secondary School student
It has been a unique experience being responsible for others (the secondary school students) and ensuring that they take something away from the visits. We also have to ensure that the objectives of each visit, mainly the health and psychosocial well-being of the patient, are fulfilled easily. What I found most difficult was bridging the gap between meeting needs of the kids and needs of our patients. Truth be told, there were many awkward moments and even between the team leaders, there was no initial consensus how each visit was going to be structured. But these were moments I really learnt from. I've learnt to forgo my expectations of wanting people to work the same way as me and learnt to be patient when interacting with students. Though I cannot be so explicit in asking the patients if they find our presence useful, I'm sure they feel comforted at times. Seeing them opening up more and sharing their stories with us makes me feel like it is worth the effort coordinating the visits.
Elampirai Elangovan, Team Leader, Medicine, Year 3
The home visits have been really enjoyable and I have gained knowledge about the dangers the elderly might encounter. I have also learned how to communicate with them. We were also able to learn how to use the blood pressure monitor to measure the elderly's blood pressure.​
Anonymous, Secondary School Volunteer
Conducting home visits with students from other disciplines in a multi-disciplinary team has been a very enriching experience for me. I have learned many things from my interactions with my teammates as they have expertise in other healthcare disciplines which I could not have learned from school. I have also found the home visits with the older adults and the secondary students very fun and refreshing as I think it is not often that a volunteering experience brings these 2 groups of people at different stages of their lives together. I also felt that it was very heart-warming to see them bonding and interacting with each other.
Anonymous, Team Leader
When we first started visiting, I was not too pleased to have to spend my free time visiting some stranger with some health conditions. When we met our patient, we were shy and unwilling to interact. The patient also seemed that he mightn't have been interested in seeing us. When we first met him, he gave off the uptight and anxious impression. His wife was too shy to interact with us, and his mother seemed to not like to talk much.
As the weeks gone by, we got to know him and his family more. With time, I was proven wrong of all my negative first impressions. Our patient eventually opened up to us, he told us stories from experiences in his life. I was surprised at how open this previously uptight and anxious man became. Throughout the visits, there was a huge notable change in him, not just in attitude, but also in his medical condition which improved.
To mention some happenings during one of our visits, we bought our patient a fighting fish. He was informed before hand that we were buying him a easy-to-manage pet, but I guess he did not expect that we really would. When we knocked on our patient's door, his reaction was something that I would never forget: his eyes show of shock, that someone would actually take the effort to remember that he likes animals; that someone would go the extra mile to surprise him with a pet of his own. The patient was very touched by the gift that he surprised us in his own way: he would prepare food and drinks for us to snack on whenever we visited. Like him, I didn't expect him to put the thought to buy us such snacks knowing that his family had some financial issues. Yet, this small gesture of preparing some food for us really touched me.
This home-visiting really taught me so many meaningful lessons and let me experience something so precious. The project taught me that no matter how old we are, we can always turn over a new leaf and be a better person. However, the wrong decisions we make while we are young has consequences that would haunt us when we get old. For example, if we consume so many sugary food when young, we would have a high chance of diabetes when we grow old. I also learned and experienced the true meaning of the phrase, "it's the thought that counts". A small good deed can cause huge good impact on someone's life.
Most importantly, this project taught me something that is forever engraved in my mind and imbedded in my heart. Throughout the visits, watching the patient change for the better has really softened my heart. I felt honoured to play a part in the patient's life. I feel proud to know that the sacrifice of my free time has helped lessen the burdens of someone else. Each week, we got to the know the patient and his family more and they got to know my group more. Slowly, the distant acquaintanceship that we started off with grew to a deep kinship among close friends. The feeling I get at knowing that I made a good impact in someone's life leaves me with joy. A sort of joy so innocent and pure like a child, something that money can never buy. Something that the current generation should experience.
Angela, Orchid Park Secondary School student
Being part of the Tri-Generational team has been both enriching and inspiring for me. As a nursing student, I've yet to understand how exactly the multidisciplinary setting is like in hospitals. But after these months of working and liaising with the many arms of healthcare, I've come to appreciate the importance of it when delivering holistic care to the community. The synergy of a multidisciplinary team can help provide a seamless continuity of care for patients, which must not be neglected as we fulfil our own responsibilities. (Excited as we journey on tgt!☺)
Chew Bi Hui, Manpower & Training Director
Nursing, Year 2
Through this volunteer work, I have learnt to interact with both the youths and the patient. Working with youths, especially those in secondary school is something that I've never considered in the past due to the fear that I'll be unable to build rapport with them. However, through this volunteer work which allows me to get to lead a group of 4 secondary school students, it allows me to have a chance to actually interact with them, to learn to manage their expectations and behaviors, to get them to break the ice between them and between us, as well as to learn from them. The facilitation of communications between the patient and the students is not an easy one due to the discomfort that they initially have. But gradually I get to see how both parties put in efforts to communicate with each other and learn from each other and this has brought me joy. It was indeed a worthwhile experience!
Loh Sing Ping, Team Leader
Social Work, Year 3
Bringing the secondary school students along on our home visits was a step out of my comfort zone. Not only did we as team leaders need to care for our elderly patients, we had young and impressionable youth under our charge whom we had the responsibility of guiding and inspiring throughout this project. Through it, I learnt to communicate better with these two separate age groups by talking about what interests them. It was a refreshing experience for me as I seldom get to interact with the elderly and youth in my daily life.
Emily Pang, Team Leader
Pharmacy, Year 2
We visited two patients, Mdm Sathia and Mr Bala every fortnightly at Yishun over a span of 4 months. We engaged them with many activities such as playing uno card games, drawing, origami, five stones, pick up sticks and even playing the guitar, which they found really enjoyable. What was most memorable was that we conducted a mini photoshoot for them and framed up the photos as a gift to them when we saw that they do not have a family portrait at home. We also bought a fighting fish for Mr Bala as he mentioned that he loves animals and we got him a pet fish to keep him company and we got Mdm Sathia a book as she loves to read. It always brings me joy to see the smiles of their faces every fortnightly and I always look forward to seeing them no matter how tiring my week was. We really enjoyed each other’s company and throughout the 4 months, we had the opportunity to understand our patients as unique individuals even more and not just as a person with a condition.
And It’s been my pleasure to be able to work alongside with my nurse from KTPH Senior Staff Nurse Doss, my fellow team leader Elston and all the secondary school students to care for our patients. I have learnt a lot through the past few months, from coordinating our different schedules and availability, to being in charge of 5 students along with my fellow team leader Elston, to planning interesting activities to engage our patients. I now appreciate and understand the impact volunteers like us can make on the lives of our patients. I am very thankful and glad to be part of this meaningful project to make that difference in their lives no matter how big or small it was.