About #asinglelove

Spotlight: Single parents & Housing

Single parents face serious difficulties accessing public housing. From unrealistic income ceilings to a lack of transparency and clarity in policies, their families can experience stress, uncertainty and financial pressure, overcrowding and tension in relatives’ homes, and frustration with poorly explained and uncertain processes. Learn more about the findings from our latest report here. 

Some of these barriers and challenges are illustrated in comic form as part of a collaboration done with four local artists. Thanks to talented artists Clogtwo, Inkten, Weng Pixin and Neo Ann Gee.

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5 big challenges for single parents

1. Housing

Unmarried parents can only purchase HDB flats at age 35, and they are only eligible for subsidies on two-room flats in non-mature estates.  Meanwhile, divorced parents are barred from renting from HDB for 30 months after selling the matrimonial flat, limiting their rental options to expensive open market flats.  When they can again rent directly from HDB, they struggle to provide for their families while remaining under the highly restrictive $1,500 income ceiling.

Read Xin Hui’s story

2. Employment

Single parents are frequently sole breadwinners too.  Many divorced parents with care and control of the children are women who left employment while married to meet the care needs of their families, sometimes negatively affecting their confidence and their skills.  Returning to the job market is a challenge in a society where too many disregard caregiving as work experience and are suspicious of single parents.

Watch Ashikin’s story

3. Childcare

The challenges of parenting are intensified when only one parent is consistently at hand for every trip to school, home-cooked meal or doctor’s visit.  Finding reliable, affordable childcare is a major difficulty for single parents, but essential if they are to find and keep employment.

Read Ms. Chuang’s story

4. Poverty

Struggling with employment, childcare and housing, many single parents find it hard to make ends meet, let alone build up savings or improve their family’s life chances.  Divorced mother are particularly vulnerable, with little CPF or savings from years as married home-makers, and often face difficulty making repeated trips to court to enforce maintenance orders against defaulting ex-spouses.

Watch Ashikin’s story

5. Stigma

Single parents have a tough job, which society makes harder by responding to them with prejudice and stereotypes.  We deny their children equality in areas like the Baby Bonus cash gift and give them stigmatising labels like ‘illegitimate’ (which carries real disadvantages in terms of inheritance law and tax reliefs), sending the hostile message that they aren’t worth as much as others, and don’t belong.

Watch N’s story | Read Wayne’s story  |  Read Sherlin’s story

Services and Programmes

#asinglelove offers the following services and programmes to support and empower single parents and their children as they strive for happiness and stability in their family lives.

News and Stories

A Place To Call Home – Reflections from Sarah, a participating artist

Oct 16 2018

On 13 October 2018, AWARE held a launch party for A Place To Call Home – a photo-essay exhibition by single-parent families. The exhibition is the powerful, heartfelt result of months of creative work by five individuals from single-parent families.

Photo essay exhibition, A Place To Call Home, reveals homes and lives of single-parent families

Oct 13 2018

Shots of messy, colourful bedrooms, of stainless steel cleaning appliances and of post-it notes from daughter to mother on a kitchen wall – these images are part of A Place To Call Home, a photo essay exhibition currently on showcase at Intermission Bar and organised by gender equality group AWARE. The exhibition explores the idea of home, and all five photo essays were put together by individuals from single-parent families.

Workshop: Laws on marriage and divorce

Aug 20 2018

Are you going through a divorce or contemplating one? Perhaps you’re getting about to enter into a marriage and are unsure about…

Let’s celebrate the small wins! Dinner & drinks with single parents

Mar 09 2018

We have some good news – on Tuesday, the Minister of National Development announced that the HDB will remove its 3-year time-bar…

How you can help

#asinglelove will benefit greatly from support by the public. With your help, we can further our outreach, empower more single parents, and encourage social and policy change that would lessen their struggles.

For more information on how to get involved in #asinglelove initiatives, email Mel at mel@daughtersoftomorrow.org.

Pledge your support

Pledge your support for single parents in Singapore. You can also help us spread word of #asinglelove to your network by sharing our powerful campaign video on Facebook and Twitter or embedding the video on your website or blog.

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Be a volunteer

If you think you would make a good volunteer befriender to support single mothers or would like to learn more about the befriending and mentoring programme, please send an email to mel@daughtersoftomorrow.org.

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Donate

Your generous donation will go far in improving the lives of single-parent families. By donating, you sustain our support programmes, workshops and direct services. Donate here — every cent counts!

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