Dr Skye Yeo, 46, who is close to her 77-year-old mother, wondered how other seniors, some might be living alone, were coping with being cooped up at home during the circuit breaker period.
She wanted a way to brighten up their days and came up with the idea for Project Audible Cheer after noticing her mother switching on her radio to fall asleep with every night.
Instead of handing out mobile phones which incur monthly costs or televisions with subscription fees, Dr Yeo decided on portable MP3 players as they would be easy to use and seniors would only have to charge them.
Dr Yeo first took to Facebook two weeks ago to ask for donations for used MP3 players but only received one. So she roped in friends to raise funds for new MP3 players. Each set – an MP3 player, two memory cards and a USB charger – costs around S$22.
She managed to raise S$9,800 before social service agency Lions Befrienders Service Association decided to come on board to help out.
A Giving.sg page was set up with the goal of collecting S$70,000 to provide 3,000 devices to seniors. S$14,500 has been collected and Dr Yeo placed her first order of MP3 players on 11 May.
To ascertain how many sets to buy, Lions Befrienders Service Association, which assists 6,000 seniors living in Housing and Development Board rented flats, reached out to the seniors to ask if they would be keen to receive these devices.
The devices will be loaded with memory cards filled with content, which include music from their era and content created by non-profit arts company 3Pumpkins. The company produces Warung Cakap Apa, a programme funded by Our Singapore Fund and created in Mandarin, dialects and Malay, offering programmes ranging from radio plays to talk shows.
Once a month, during their visits, befrienders will switch out the memory cards in the MP3 players, with a new memory card that has been uploaded with new content so that the seniors will be able to have something new to listen to.
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Source: TODAYOnline, 9 May 2020