SINGAPORE – For eight years, Ms Azliana Ahmad lived with her husband and her seven children aged five to 17 in a cramped public rental flat, where they slept on mattresses in the living room.

In July, the family got the keys to a new home, their own four-room Build-To-Order (BTO) flat in Sengkang.

“This is my biggest achievement and I feel very proud of myself,” said Ms Azliana. “Even though it’s very late for me, I’m already 38 years old, it’s okay.

“I can see how happy my kids are. When we were doing the renovation for the kitchen, they were like: This is our kitchen? Even my daughter said: It’s like a condo.”

Ms Azliana, who bought her flat in 2015 but later struggled to keep her family afloat, found a structured way of pursuing her goals after joining a development programme in October 2022.

The Empowered Families Initiative (EFI) – set up by a group of social service practitioners in 2021 – gave her monthly grants and topped up what she saved of the grants to help tide her over.

Ms Azliana did not have savings of her own before. With the extra cash, she bought bunk beds for her new home, on top of enrolling in a diploma course and for a driving licence, and running her home-based businesses, Sarahah Kitchen, which sells Malay food, and Dapuur Makmokz, which serves Vietnamese fare. She is also saving up to pay her mortgage. 

EFI was the winning project in a nationwide competition by local charity =Dreams Asia, which saw more than 60 teams in Singapore vying for the $500,000 grand prize to create a breakthrough project to end poverty. The competition began in May 2022 and announced its winner a year later.

The initiative gives families $250 every month over six months to improve their circumstances, for instance by taking courses and clearing their debt.

A total of 27 families, many of whom are living in rental flats, have taken part in the programme. They are chosen after going through an interview and showing that they are keen to pursue certain goals to improve their situations.

Applicants with a per capita household income of $800 or less a month are eligible, but this is not a hard and fast criterion, said the project’s founder Adriana Rasip.  

The Majurity Trust, a philanthropic organisation, is one of the funders of the programme.

To encourage families to save money, EFI tops up what they manage to save of their monthly grants by double the amount, and another $300 if they do not dip into their savings for six months. 

Participants meet other families in the programme every month to update one another on their progress, and keep one another accountable to their goals.

Said Ms Adriana: “Families may feel very alone on this journey when they work on their goals, but with other people’s support and encouragement going through the same things, they are able to lean on one another for support and also lobangs (opportunities), resources.”

EFI – inspired by a similar, two-year programme in the United States – aims to invest in the plans of lower-income families to improve their life circumstances, rather than seeing them as passive recipients of assistance.

Ms Adriana, whose day job is that of deputy executive director at South Central Community Family Service Centre, added: “Instead of starting from the premise of being a needy person, can we look at the families as assets, and can we do more to invest in them, invest in their potential to improve their quality of life?”

The Government’s new ComLink+ scheme, which was announced on Nov 20, similarly gives families financial incentives to send their children to pre-school, get a stable job that pays Central Provident Fund contributions, and save up to buy their own homes.

From monthly reports submitted by families in the first pilot from October 2022 to March 2023, the EFI team found that a $3,300 investment per family led to 21 per cent higher income, all debts and arrears cleared, and a 141 per cent increase in savings.

The team hopes to extend the programme’s duration beyond six months for families to benefit more. Participants are allowed to join a total of four iterations, or up to two years.

Initially, Ms Azliana had wanted to cancel her BTO application to apply for a resale flat to fit her family of nine. But resale prices soared during the pandemic.

“It wasn’t a very healthy place, there were a lot of drunk people who always lepak (loiter) downstairs and the children are watching,” she said of her rental flat in Toa Payoh.

In October, Ms Azliana was terminated from her job as a public relations officer in a construction firm after three months, as she did not have a diploma. This was despite her having more than five years of experience in the field. From drawing a monthly salary of $3,200, she had to rely on her husband, who works as a delivery driver. 

“Because of the things I’ve gone through, I have to achieve all these goals in order to sustain my children’s emotions. Whatever happens to me, I will try to be better.” 

Fortunately, she was receiving grants from EFI, having enrolled in her second run of the programme from July 2023 to January 2024.

She threw herself into her home-based business and a diploma course in marketing. She also got the help of housing assistance programme Keystart to renovate the kitchen in their new home.

To improve the long-term outlook for low-income families, EFI will launch a scholarship in 2024 for adults to further their studies. Obtaining formal qualifications will help them secure more stable employment, Ms Adriana said.

Those who complete the EFI programme also get to join the selection panel to interview applicants and share their experiences with participants.

Another EFI participant, Ms Melissa Ismail, 36, who started a home-based business called Mole’k selling sushi bakes during the pandemic, managed to set up her first booth at a bazaar in Wisma Geylang Serai in November. Ms Azliana, whom she met through the programme, opened the booth with her.

“I didn’t know I could be sold out in three hours. There was so much happiness,” said Ms Melissa, who lives with her husband, a delivery driver, and their two children, aged nine and 11, in a two-room public rental flat in Teck Whye.

The monthly meet-ups with her group motivated her to keep striving.

“It was very heart-warming to go from strangers to friends, and then work together and be there for one another,” she said.

She added that she did not have any savings before she joined the programme. The grants and matched savings helped her to set up the booth and get influencers to promote her food, which improved her sales.

Ms Melissa is planning to get her driving licence to do deliveries herself, and hopes to sell her food at more events and eventually set up a physical store.

“Now I’m more confident to go out and meet people. And then when you see people loving your food, when you see the queue, you’re so happy. I can see myself growing, and I know I can do so much more.”