home 쐽 THE STRAITS TIMES SATURDAY, JULY 18 2009 PAGE B2
tion, said a proposal for
Little kitchen
ladles out lots
of goodness
Project sells food, trains
people, ploughs back
surpluses to help needy
BY ANG YIYING
ON THE premises of the Bukit Panjang
Community Club is a hard-working little
kitchen with big dreams.
It measures all of 50 sq m – slightly
smaller than a three-room Housing Board
flat – but has been churning out 500 piec-
es of Malay kueh and 150 packets of nasi
lemak daily for sale from pushcarts in the
neighbourhood and at Fajar Shopping
Centre since January.
On Fridays, the kitchen also supplies a
pushcart set up at Al-Iman Mosque; on
weekends, it produces an additional 300
packets of mee siam for its other outlets.
The kitchen generates an average
monthly turnover of $18,000 from this,
and takes on occasional catering and bulk
orders as well.
On top of this, it is a training kitchen:
It gives job seekers baking and marketing
skills and the know-how to start up a
small food business.
Going forward, the 10-month-old
Community Kitchen Co-operative, run
by the North West Community Develop-
ment Council (CDC) and its partners,
sees itself functioning also as a welfare
kitchen serving up meals to about 650
needy folk with meal coupons.
Plans are also afoot to open a similar fa-
cility in Sembawang by next year.
Its status as a cooperative means it
ploughs back the surpluses it makes and
puts these into expanding its operations
to help more people; some of its surplus
may go into the Central Cooperative
Fund to power other co-ops like itself.
this has been received, a
result of talks it had with
the other three CDCs.
North West District
Mayor Teo Ho Pin told re-
porters that the Central
Cooperative Fund gave
the kitchen a three-year
grant of about $400,000.
Part of this money
went into expanding the
kitchen from 30 sq m to
50 sq m.
Since April, the kitchen
has run five-day work tri-
als for those looking for a
career in the food and bev-
erage industry. Most of
the 34 people taking part
in these trials, who were
paid an allowance, were
women in their 30s to 50s.
Nineteen have signed up
for highly-subsidised fur-
ther courses at a baking
school and nine have
found jobs.
After she was retrenched in May, Madam Zarina Ahmad took up bread- and cake-making courses and went through Madam Zarina Ahmad,
a work trial in the Community Kitchen. She recently found employment at Donut Empire. PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
36, for instance, is now an
employee at a Donut Em-
It is the second co-op registered by a He said: “In life, it’s not good enough pire chain outlet where
CDC after the South West CDC’s Women to have a noble cause and to have good in- she is learning new skills like frying and ic-
Enterprise Workz, which trains women in tentions... That’s why I believe especially ing doughnuts and drawing $300 more
crafts like jewellery-making and can- in cooperatives – they are not charities, than when she was a food-court helper.
dle-making. they are not here to lose money. In fact, After she was retrenched in May, she
At the official opening of the kitchen successful cooperatives must make sur- took up bread- and cake-making courses
yesterday, Minister for Community Devel- pluses. Because unless you are making a and went through a work trial in the kitch-
opment, Youth and Sports Vivian surplus, you are not sustainable.” en.
Balakrishnan lauded co-ops for their so- There are signs that more such co-ops There are now 86 cooperatives island-
cial mission and their practice of putting tied to CDCs could spring up. wide. The Community Kitchen was
surpluses to work so they can give back Mr Chan Tee Seng, chairman of the among the three set up last year.
to the community. Singapore National Cooperative Federa- ayiying@sph.com.sg
MP Ang Mong Seng helping to repaint the home of Mr and
Mrs Ang Lian Huat yesterday, under a new scheme which
pays for the refurnishing of the homes of those in need.
ST PHOTO: AZIZ HUSSIN
Bukit Gombak’s
needy get free
home makeovers
THE three-room flat in Bukit Batok belonging to
Madam Toh Yian Meng, 50, and her husband Ang
Lian Huat, 70, now sports lily-white walls, new
windows and doors.
And when night falls, energy-saving bulbs come
on, the power supplied by brand-new wiring.
The couple paid nothing for these improve-
ments, which would have cost them between
$7,000 and $8,000 – money they can ill afford be-
cause their health problems have ruled out either of
them holding down a job.
The makeover for their home came courtesy of
the Home Maintenance Programme, which was
launched yesterday by the Bukit Gombak Communi-
ty Development & Welfare Fund Committee for
homes belonging to low-income families under its
jurisdiction.
Families are picked for the programme based on
their income level, the condition of their homes and
their level of need.
The couple’s home is one of the first two to bene-
fit from the programme.
The work, completed yesterday, was done by vol-
unteers from grassroots bodies and by Housing De-
velopment Board contractors.
Madam Toh was diagnosed with cervical cancer
last year and is also mentally unwell, and her hus-
band has severe cataracts in both eyes.
She said in Mandarin yesterday: “I’m very happy
that our home has been renovated.”
The area’s Member of Parliament, Mr Ang Mong
Seng, dropped in on them and the programme’s oth-
er beneficiary, a family of four, yesterday.
CHIA YAN MIN