TR EMERITUS

Although Singapore is one the richest countries in Asia, there are many poor people in its midst who cannot afford the soaring food price and the high cost of living. Many of the needy are the silent workforce - foreign workers. Their salary are so low that Singaporeans would not take these jobs. Most of their salaries are sent home to their families or pay off up to a year's worth of debts Help is available for the needy. Yes, there is such a thing as free lunch in Singapore. Some religious associations and welfare groups provide free meals. The bills are sponsored by members of these groups and business people. Here are some of the places that provide free meals: Singapore Buddhist Lodge. The Kim Yan Road temple serves free vegetarian breakfast, lunch and dinner from 7am to 7pm. All are welcome regardless of their race or religion. In the queue one can find all sorts of people, from the homeless, unemployed, foreign students, foreign construction workers and of course some freeloaders who work nearby. The Central Sikh Temple. The temple in Jalan Bukit Merah provides free vegetarian Indian lunches every day. Nativity Church. This Catholic church at the end of Upper Serangoon Road provides free breakfast and lunch every day. The Lutheran King of Glory Church in Norris Road, serves free meals every Sunday to ndian workers dring its Taml service. Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. This Buddhist temple at South Bridge Road provides free meal from 12.30pm to 6.30pm every day. Tian Tao Temple at Sengkang invites foreign workes to its Sunday breakfast buffet. Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society. They have meal centres in Toa Payoh (Blk 31 #01-663 Lor 5), Telok Blangah (Blk 3, #01-504, Telok Blangah Crescent) and MacPherson (Blk 90, #01-103, Pipit Road). Sri Krisna Mandir. The Hindu religious group at No 9, Lor 29, Geylang. serves free vegetarian food from 11am to 10 pm daily. All are welcome. Care Corner Seniors Activities Centre. The Centre at Toa Payoh, Lor 7 Blk 5 #01-131 serves free breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea for senior citizens. (http://www.carecorner.org.sg) Free Hawker Meal Program. If you are a needy resident living in Tanglin-Cairnhill area, you can apply for help at the Tanjong Pagar GRC. The GRC, under the free Hawker meal Program provides $36 worth of meal vouchers every month to needy recipients for a year. You can exchange the $3 voucher for a free meal at selected food staff at some of the coffee shops in Bukit Merah View and Henderson Road. Sutha Restaurant. This restaurant at Cuff Road provides free breakfast (from 7am to 9am) and dinner on weekdays only and lunch on Sundays. This is for stranded Indian workers in Singapore whose beds are the concrete walkways along Cuff Road. These distressed migrants are abandoned by their employees after their work injury or they are duped by the agents. To qualify for the free food, participants are asked to show a Special Pass (a govt-issued document, which means they do not have a work permit) or evidence that they are injured / have a case pending (a letter from a doctor/lawyer plus a work permit). It is funded by the Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) together with One Singapore. Lamea Restaurant. The TWC2 provides free dinner for Bangladeshi at Lamea restaurant at Desker Road. (http://www.twc2.org.sg) ACMI. A Catholic humanitarian group called the Archdiocesan Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People or ACMI, feeds migrant workers three times a week at its premise in No 2, Highland Road. The site is beside the Church of the Immaculate heart of Mary (http://www.catholic.org.sg/acmi/soupkitchen.htm). The Migrant Workers Centre in Rangoon road provides free lunches once a month in parntership wth neigbouring restaurants. The center is a joint effort betweeen the NUTC and the Singapore national Employers Federation. YWCA. Their meals-on-wheels for Elderly distributes free lunches to needy, frail and homebound senior citizens in Banda Street, Bukit Merah View, Cantonment Road, Holland Road, Lengkok Bahru, and Mei Ling Street. Their Meals-on-wheels for Children program provides free dinner for children from Low-income families who are schooling in Zhangde Primary School, New Town Primary School, Queenstown Primary School, Gan Eng Seng Primary School and Beyong Social Services. For more information on the meals-on-wheels program, please contact Ms Celest Ling at 6223 1227. The Willing Hearts, a secular group, distributes free food in 10 areas, among them Ang o Kio, Bukit merah and Hougang. Call 9690-2086 for more information. In these times of needs, there is no shortage of compassion from the people of Singapore. Nobody in Singapore needs to go to bed hungry. Thankfully, nobody starves to death in Singapore.   Sam Choo * Sam Choo is a freelance writer at www.articles-writer.com  Read More →

Echoing the words of Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, the Temasek Review has become a "victim" of our own success as our surging readership far outstripped our limited resources to maintain the site. The Temasek Review was previously run by rotating teams of volunteers who contributed to its servers out of their own pockets, but its astonishing climb in readership means that it is no longer feasible for it to rely solely on advertising in the long run. Referring to the post by our reader Forecaster Extraordinarie II dated 25th August 2010 entitled, Temasek Review has Singapore Press Holdings to thank for their success, Temasek Review was then ranked 74,089 in the world and 199 in Singapore. Ranking as of 26th August 2010 Our readership have multiplied ten-fold since our last appeal for donations towards a new dedicated server on 16th August 2010 (Temasek Review needs a new server urgently). Temasek Review is now ranked 63,930 in the world and 162 in Singapore, moving up the charts to surpass TodayOnline who is now ranked 203 in Singapore, considering the fact that TodayOnline is owned by MediaCorp and has full-time journalists and techinical staff manning it. Ranking as of 7th September 2010 With the rapid increase in readership, our servers are constantly running at near its maximum capacity during peak hours causing a noticeable decline in access speed and longer site loading time. Success comes at a price and Temasek Review urgently needs a new server to offload and balance the increase in traffic which is expected to increase tremendously with Election Day being only months away. The deployment cost of the planned new server is US$1,300.00 and we have only managed to raise US$974.85 in donations as of 15th September 2010 (excluding the cost of the TemasekVPN server which is on consignment arrangement). The monthly lease of US$1,800.00 for all our servers will be paid for by our advertising revenues. As much as we would prefer not to, we are now stuck in an awkward situation whereby we may be forced to start banning accesses by Country instead of just network blocks. We might even need to continue banning Singapore ISP's netblocks if the situation worsens. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do at the moment due to financial constraints but in the meantime, we would like to say a big "THANK YOU" to those who have donated towards our new server and would like to appeal to our other readers to please support our site by making a token donation if you believe in our cause. Readers interested in making a donation can do so with their Credit or Debit card which will be processed by our payment processor, MoneyBookers. All information submitted will be kept strictly confidential, none of your payment information will be stored on our server except email address.   Alternatively you may also support our site by ordering a TemasekVPN from us at a discounted price of US$60.00 for 6 months, click for more information.   While we badly need the donations to deploy another server, please do not donate if you have any reservations or is worried about online security or personal safety. There are other ways of supporting our site like contributing articles, ordering services and products from our advertisers (CPL). Thank you in advance for all your support towards Temasek Review.   Molina Han Managing Editor, Temasek Review   * Please note that we DO NOT accept PayPal and our previous PayPal account is no longer in use.  Read More →

Dear TR, Today I feel like ending it. I was jobless since I was let go by my previous company last November. I was surviving on the last of my savings and when that ran out, I had to apply for a temporary loan on my credit card. I have a lot of financial burdens as my mother was diagnosed with cancer and it was a painful 2 year period of expensive treatments and surgeries till she passed away in 2008. But my problems did not end there as my father too was retrenched and my younger brother was still studying in university. The bills and debts kept mounting up. But finally I had some ray of light in mid August when I was finally hired. I got a half month's salary just last week and a lot of it was already earmarked to pay off some outstanding bills and loans. I made a call to UOB, my current biggest creditor. As my credit cards were discontinued when I had no choice but to default on my payments, I asked to speak to someone in the credit card division with regards to arranging for a payment plan on Monday. The credit officer who spoke to me said that she would look into arranging for a repayment scheme, but asked if I could make a lump sum payment first. I said that amount was not possible and asked for another arrangement. She said that she would get back to me. Today when I went to the ATM to draw on my funds to begin paying off the bills, to my shock my entire bank account was emptied, leaving less than $50.00 behind. I rushed home to discover what happened, only to find that UOB had deducted everything on its own accord. Right now it is only month beginning and I am already broke, with no funds and no resources to even travel to work. How am I supposed to survive and work to pay off my debts if the bank can do this to me? I have no where to turn.   Nic LY Mobile: (65) 8492-2677   Editor's note: Contact information published with writer's consent. Those who wish to contact the writer can do so directly. As with all online pleas, readers please excercise due care and diligence.  Read More →