Waste oil collector struggles after STOMP posts, receives help from kind souls

By Jeanette Tan | Yahoo Newsroom – 

After being photographed at work in Jurong pooling used oil near coffee shops, 50-year-old Valerie Sim has been struggling to keep her family afloat.

Web portals STOMP and The Real Singapore published pictures of her in February, triggering a witch hunt for others like her and comments from readers like "Who knows if they'll use it as cooking oil?" Some readers also said they filed police reports against her and other people they believed were doing the same thing she was.

Actually, according to a report by The New Paper early last month, she was simply collecting waste oil to sell to licensed general waste collector Sky-Land (Oils and Fats), which would process the grease to turn into biodiesel. She was paid daily based on how much oil she gathered.

After the photos of her surfaced online, she and a colleague were advised by the National Environment Agency to stop work, said the TNP report.

The paper also reported that Sim, a divorcee who received only Secondary 3 education and is the family breadwinner, then had to borrow from relatives to get by. She and her two sons, one of whom requires psychiatric care and attends regular counseling sessions, were also said to be surviving on canned food and rice at the time because she had no more income.

This week, she has received some help from strangers. Gilbert Cheah, managing director of a magazine publishing company headquartered in Switzerland, read about Sim's story a month after it was published in TNP and shared it on his Facebook page inviting help from his friends or anyone who saw the post.

Obtaining Sim's contact through the TNP reporter, Cheah said he pooled cheque donations and NTUC Fairprice vouchers from people who were keen to help and met up with her on Wednesday to hand them to her.

"She was really overwhelmed with gratitude," he wrote in a follow-up post on his Facebook page. "She broke down several times as she talked about her hardships and especially over her 13-year-old son who needs counselling."

Cheah also shared that apart from receiving help from the Community Development Council and the government, she has gotten some job offers and is going for interviews, although she cannot take on a full-time position because of the need to bring her son for sessions.

"Mdm Sim said it means so much to her… to know that people care," he wrote.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/waste-oil-collector-struggles-after-stomp-posts--receives-help-from-kind-souls-022024778.html