Hack Kopitiam

Hack Kopitiam explores how to leverage the ubiquity of coffeeshop as natural community nodes to engage male seniors — a group often less engaged with formal ageing programmes. Through ethnographic study, training of volunteer arts students and infrastructural upgrading, we created new ways for Active Ageing Centres (AACs) to work with nearby coffeeshops so that senior men can connect, participate, and access formal support within the everyday environments they feel more comfortable in.

In collaboration with design studio Forest and Whale, University of the Arts Singapore (UAS), coffeeshop chains Kim San Leng (Ang Mo Kio) and Chang Mee Wah (Marine Terrace), as well as AACs run by Montfort Care and Thye Hua Kwan Moral Charities, the initiative engaged seniors through a series of creative activations, including caricature sessions, Chinese calligraphy, stone stacking, and more. These workshops, facilitated by youths from UAS, fostered new social connections, helped seniors break the ice with AAC staff, and empowered seniors to contribute to their community in new ways.

Through these efforts, Hack Kopitiam piloted how closer integration between coffeeshops and AACs – two community nodes that are, in spite of their differences, central to the lives of seniors ageing in place – can look like.

Mr Lee Poh Wah, CEO, Lien Foundation, said in The Straits Times, “Senior men are a hard-to-reach group for preventative healthcare and we need more appealing approaches and safe spaces for them to find social support and camaraderie, to meet them where they are, not where we want them to be.”

From Shin Min Daily News: 总裁李宝华受访时指出，活跃乐龄中心有必要增加其所服务的年长范围，然而年长男性又往往是预防性保健较难触及到的群体，因此需要通过不同方式与他们接触。Mr Lee Poh Wah, CEO, Lien Foundation, said during the interview that it is necessary for Active Ageing Centres (AACs) to expand the age range of seniors they serve. However, older men are often harder to reach when it comes to engaging with the social care system, which makes innovative approaches like the Hack Kopitiam initiative essential for effectively

活动发起人蔡汶霓发现，许多乐龄人士不爱到邻里中心或乐龄中心，反而喜欢到咖啡店或者组屋楼下聚会，“与其把他们带到乐龄中心，倒不如我们把一些关怀的方式或者一些不同的活动带入邻里。”

过去几个月，马林百列一带举办的Hack Kopitiam吸引了135位乐龄人士参加，近一半是首次参与。

Wendy Chua, designer and co-founder of Forest & Whale who worked with Lien Foundation on the Hack Kopitiam initiative said: “Many senior men prefer gathering at coffeeshops or the void decks of HDB flats rather than visiting Active Ageing Centres (AACs). Hence, we decided to bring creative and engaging activities directly into their neighborhoods.”