We arrived at Chong Pang RC a few minutes before 1pm. We met Miss Emily Tan and the volunteers who would be following us around on our unit-by-unit visit, for safety reasons.
Chong Pang RC
Group shot! (minus 3 BARAY members who had gone off to buy drinks)
Dismayingly, there had been a problem with the printing of GREASE-cycle flyers, and they had not arrived yet. Undeterred, we set out to achieve our target of 100 agreeable households! The flyers came later, and we left them in the mailboxes of the previous households we visited. One adult volunteer accompanied each pair, and each pair was assigned to cover 2 blocks. 1 person remained in the RC to ensure smooth coordination
It is this author’s and Gloria’s opinion that their accompanying adult volunteer, Rena, (who told us, you can be my children! 😀 ) that “Aunty” is a very very helpful and nice person indeed. 🙂 She confidently brought us to the blocks we were covering and had no reservations telling the residents about our project. Admittedly, there were times she was over-enthusiastic (These girls are from RGS! Very good brains!- where this author and Gloria looked down in awkwardness), but she really helped us a lot! Especially when we met dialect or Malay speaking residents. The basic script was:
1) Tell them about GREASE-cycle and how they can help
2) If agreeable, give them bottle/funnel and remind them of 1st collection date
3) Agreeable or not, ask them how they usually dispose of Used Cooking Oil and what they normally recycle at home
Surveyors would record their interest in participating, as well as the survey results on a layout provided.
Gloria pressing the doorbell
One of the first agreeable residents
Aunty explaining the project in dialect (which we have limited proficiency in)
- Gloria, Samantha Soong and their “Aunty”
Passing the bottle and funnel
Passing another bottle and funnel
And another bottle/funnel
Posting flyers
Project BARAY members in action
Response was surprisingly good. It was only about 3pm when we had 100 households agreeable in participating. At this point of time, a serious confusion arose. Some pairs were under the impression that after we had hit our target, we could call it a day. Others thought that after we hit our target, we continued to survey the remaining households. Since only 100 bottles/funnels had been brought along, the remaining agreeable households would be asked to use their own bottles. To clear up the confusion, all pairs were called back to the RC. (Apparently certain Project BARAY members were having so much fun being paired up together they were reluctant to return 😛 While waiting for all pairs to return, this author learnt some interesting facts about those certain Project BARAY members. We wish them all the best 😛 )
Yujia cleared things up for all of us. While the original plan was to stop once 100 households agreed to participate, Miss Emily Tan had decided that we should involve all the residents in Chong Pang RC Zone 7. Therefore, after a short 10 minute break, all of us went out again. This time, most of the volunteers had gone home. Aunty was no longer with us, but we were still ready to accept the challenge.
Is anyone home?
Agreeable participant from 2nd half of the day
A particularly memorable household this author and Gloria visited included a very young boy-boy who on opening the door shouted 美女!美女! He shouted it at random intervals while we told his mother about our project. Having successfully gotten his mother to participate, we left, leaving him still shouting 美女!美女! We were amused, and of course mildly flattered. 😛
Another funny story, according to Yujia and Yujin, was how their accompanying uncle helped them share about GREASE-cycle. He would start of with, “We are girls from Raffles Girls’ School”. (Ever since when did RGS start accepting males?)
We came across 2 intimidating messages vandalised on the walls too: O$P$!
By 5pm, most of us were exhausted. Our legs screamed with each step we took, our perspiration had soaked our blouse and admittedly there were times we felt we could go on no further. However, when the people working in a pair encouraged each other, and thought positively (This is good training for 2.4 km in NAPFA test). We persevered on! Those who finished their blocks earlier came to help those who still had more to do.
Finally, at 7.15pm, a very very very exhausted Project GREASE arrived back at the RC. Project BARAY had finished their assignments (oh well, they had more people!). We said goodbye to them, and sorted out the filled-up layouts. Our legs were extremely pain; we had problems walking, but we had accomplished surveying every single household (besides those who were not at home).
What a fruitful day! Hopefully, on 7 March when we go down again, the residents would have remembered to place bottles of UCO outside their doors and we will be able to collect a considerable amount of UCO.
We are proud to announce that after adding up the numbers of agreeable participants from each block, we have a grand total of TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY TWO agreeable households, far exceeding our expectations. We thank all the residents in Chong Pang Zone 7 for their support, as well as everyone (Northwest CDC, Project BARAY, the volunteers, Pearlie who provided the bottles for us, the RC etc.) who made this event a success. 🙂
We will be holding a workshop with Chung Cheng High school on the 7 of March before collection the used cooking oil, and another workshop for Yishun Primary School on 11 March, the 2 schools which expressed interest in participating GREASEycle.
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Oil to soap movement 