Retired cleaner Zulfikli Atnawi, 60, holds on to a trolley of supplies such as rice, teabags and cooking oil at a 24-hour supermarket in Dawson. Every few nights with his children, he organises grocery runs of basic supplies for several underprivileged neighbours in Mei Ling Street—a neighbourhood with many one and two- room rental flats. Since the start of the pandemic and the subsequent circuit breaker, many struggle to buy basic groceries.

Zulkifli Atnawi proceeds to the cashier to make payment. To prevent hoarding, supermarkets limit two quantities of cooking oil and 5kg of rice per person. With his 23-year-old son Zulfeqar Zulkifli and a volunteer, they are able to bring back more with each trip.

Outside the supermarket, Zulkifli Atnawi and his youngest son Zulfekar Zulkifli organise the supplies they bought onto their personal trolley. All the purchases are paid for from their own pockets. Zulfekar and his siblings have raised funds, over $10,000, through their ground-up initiative titled Project Hills. They reach out and deliver essential household items and supplies to the underprivileged and elderly.

From the supermarket, they make the walk home, around twelve minutes, pushing their personal trolley back to their two-room rental flat at Block 155 Mei Ling Street.

In their living room, Zulkifli and his children Zulfekar Zulkifli, 23 (middle), and Zulayqha Zulkifli, 25 (right), organise their purchases, with some donations, and packs them into big red plastic bags for distribution a few days later. Each bag would have staples such as rice, tea bags, condensed milk, cooking oil, washing detergent, and a care pack comprising of sanitisers and masks.

Plastic bags complete with the necessary household items are placed in an another area of the living room—one with newspaper printouts of his children’s achievements on the walls. These bags will be distributed to the underprivileged and the elderly living nearby—usually on weekends and with volunteers from Project Hills.

Retired cleaner Zulkifli greets a resident at Block 151 Mei Ling Street while the volunteers continue with the distribution of household items and $100 NTUC Vouchers. A few of the residents recognise him and would take the time to chat with him through their gate. As compared to his immediate neighbours, Zulkifli shares that the residents in this block are in their 60s or older based on his many visits.

Speaking to curious residents, Zulkifli quickly explains the charity work they do and suggest they save his number and call him if they are short of food or basic amenities. Most of his neighbours have saved his name as John, from the John Wayne westerns which his father loved. It can be difficult to pronounce my name he said.

Taxi driver Roy Alfie Lee, 39, parks his vehicle, a HDT electric taxi, in an industrial area near Toa Payoh where he waits for a call to pick up suspected Covid-19 patients to hospitals. This GrabResponse service ride-hailing firm Grab, part of a Ministry of Health initiative, involves private-hire vehicles and taxis piloted in late March.

Browsing through his e-books on his tablet, Roy Alfie Lee, spends much of his time waiting inside his vehicle for a call. From 10 to 15 calls each week when he started on 31 March, it has dropped to one to three a week since the first week of June. There used to be 23 drivers, with now just six of them on the GrabResponse team he said.

Driver Roy Alfie Lee, in his personal protective equipment (PPE), comprising gloves, goggles, a mask and yellow gown sanitises his vehicle with alcohol wipes. This is done after every pick-up. From picking up to dropping off a passenger, it takes around an hour before he returns to the waiting area for the next call. The most challenging part of ferrying these passengers is feeling sleepy from wearing the PPE he said.

After sanitising his vehicle, Roy Alfie Lee removes his yellow gown and the rest of his personal protective equipment (PPE) for disposal in a biohazard bag in the boot of his car. The 39-year-old estimates completing over 50 trips picking up those on stay- home notice, Singapore returnees and migrant workers.

Brothers Mohamed Zulfizwan Mohamed Zulkafli (right) and Muhammad Zulfadli Mohamed Zulkafli reunite after buying groceries for their customers inside Geylang Serai Market. They run SG Pasar Online, a service that delivers customised grocery shopping to your doorstep. Such a service, they feel, would encourage the elderly to stay at home during the Covid-19 pandemic and reduce the risk of infection in crowded spaces.

Muhammad Zulfadli, 21, makes payment for a few kilograms of prawns as ordered by his customers. Working individually, he is tasked to buy ‘wet’ items such as poultry, meats and seafood. He said that most of his Malay customers still prefer to buy their groceries from Geylang Serai Market out of familiarity.

On the other side of Geylang Serai Market, Mohamed Zulfizwan, is tasked with buying ‘dry’ goods, such as spices and vegetables. Initially, Mohamed Zulfizwan, 27, never understood the attraction of such a market when there are cleaner alternatives. But after doing groceries almost daily for a month, he understands that visitors look forward to the interaction and banter with stall owners.

After making all his purchases, Muhammad Zulfadli organises them in red plastic bags according to invoices and then stores them in a big white styrofoam box. SG Pasar Online started deliveries on 02 April just a few days before the circuit breaker. It will get more difficult to maintain social distancing in a space as popular as Geylang Serai Market he said.

In a rented van, both brothers who are still studying, plan a route to deliver all the groceries to their customers in the shortest possible time. Just two days before Hari Raya Aidilfitri, they received their biggest number of orders and delivered to 14 different households.

Brothers Mohamed Zulfizwan (in black) and Muhammad Zulfadli (in blue) wait for their customers to collect their goods which they had ordered the day before at a HDB flat near Buangkok.

After parking the rented van at a HDB flat near Sembawang, Muhammad Zulfadli (in blue) delivers the purchased goods to his customer’s flat. For smaller orders, only one person would do the delivery leaving Mohamed Zulfizwan, who drives, waiting at the loading and unloading area.

Cab driver Teo Kim Yew, 58, waits outside his taxi for a delivery order from Pizza Hut’s Blk 85 Toa Payoh branch. This is the nearest branch from home and he delivers pizzas from 5pm till 11pm daily. The Covid-19 pandemic has crippled demand for taxi drivers like Teo as Singaporeans went through a partial lockdown, either staying or working from home, between April 7th till June 4th.

Once ready for delivery, Teo Kim Yew assists with packing the order inside the Pizza Hut branch. The taxi driver of 20 years started delivery work for Pizza Hut on April 29—something he has not done before. Based on news reports, more than 680 cabbies from ComfortDelgro have been deployed to take on delivery jobs with companies such as fast food restaurants KFC and Pizza Hut as well as food-delivery platform Foodpanda.

With pizzas in the passenger seat, Teo Kim Yew heads to a HDB flat at Toa Payoh Lorong Two for his first delivery. Before his working shift with Pizza Hut, Teo would wait for passengers at taxis stands near Toa Payoh Central or Novena Square for almost two hours, from nine till five, with little luck during the circuit breaker.

Taxi driver Teo Kim Yew finds the apartment of his first delivery inside a block on Toa Payoh Lorong Two. There have been no difficult customers so far he says after doing deliveries for over a month. Sometimes he would receive a tip of around two to five dollars.

Waiting is a big part of delivering with Pizza Hut, as Teo Kim Yew takes a drink from his water bottle while waiting around 30 to 45 minutes for the next order. He earns seven dollars an hour with an additional four dollars for every trip. For now he says, this income helps, as there are no little to no passengers on the road.

Teo Kim Yew leaves the Blk 85 Toa Payoh Pizza Hut branch for his second delivery at Toa Payoh Lorong One, a HDB Flat.

Teo Kim Yew chats briefly with a taxi driver who also delivers for Pizza Hut at the carpark. Together with a private-hire driver, these three would take turns to make deliveries for Pizza Hut.

Teo Kim Yew completes his third delivery at a condominium in Bradell as it starts to rain heavily. He usually reaches home just before midnight to his family of five children, and sometimes with free pizzas.