Jalan Kukoh is a low-income neighbourhood in Singapore comprising rental flats.

14-year-old Lilatha Preethi d/o Mathavan writes a short piece about living in Jalan Kukoh and what she learnt from her neighbours there.

Mothership and The Birthday Collective are in collaboration to share essays from the 2019 edition of The Birthday Book Jr.

The Birthday Book Jr is a collection of 55 essays featuring young Singaporeans from various walks of life.

Apart from showcasing the diversity of young voices in Singapore, these essays also discuss our collective future as a nation.

We have reproduced Lilatha's piece here:

By Lilatha Preethi d/o Mathavan

My neighbours and I have been very close since they moved next door. They are very kind and caring towards me.

Whenever I had problems in school or when I needed help with my school work, my neighbour would help me with it.

Even when I didn’t have food or when my water had been cut off because my family did not have enough money to pay the bills, they would let me take showers in their house.

They have taught me to care about others regardless of their age, religion, race, language, size or weight.

They have made a small yet admirable impact on me, because they were not specific about which races to be associated with.

Even though they are Filipinos and I am Indian, the lessons they taught me were to understand and care about others with different backgrounds or situations and to be nicer to everyone.

I realized that asking others how their day went wouldn’t hurt at all.

Since January 2014, ReadAble has been running weekly reading and language arts classes for children ages two to 15 in a neighbourhood in the Chin Swee area. Some volunteers also run one-on-one classes with children in their homes across the week.

If you happen to be in the education space and think this essay may be suitable as a resource (e.g. for English Language, General Paper or Social Studies lessons), The Birthday Collective has an initiative, "The Birthday Workbook", that includes discussion questions and learning activities based on The Birthday Book essays. You can sign up for its newsletter at bit.ly/TBBeduresource.

Top photo from Google Streetview.