SINGAPORE – Every Tuesday, elderly residents in Toa Payoh rush to register to ballot for a weekly mahjong session held on Sunday afternoons at their local community club.
These sessions – where 24 youth volunteers mingle with 24 elderly residents over mahjong – are so well-received by seniors that they are frequently oversubscribed, and balloting had to be introduced in 2025 to give more people a chance to attend.
“I’m very happy when I get the chance to play,” said retiree Kong Yoke Kew, 73, who has been attending the sessions at Toa Payoh West Community Club for two years. “I look forward to it every week.”
These sessions are led by a group of young people who hope to bridge the intergenerational gap through a game that elderly residents can play. Called Mahjong Together, the group was started by students from Dunman High School in 2021.
The initiative is now run by a committee of 15 young people that rotates yearly, mostly students, who handle its operations, outreach and recruitment.
Youth volunteers for each month’s sessions are recruited monthly via online-sign ups, with about 70 to 90 volunteers turning up each month to play games at community clubs, active ageing centres and care homes across Singapore.
Sessions are mostly organised on an ad-hoc basis, but they run most regularly on Sunday afternoons at Toa Payoh West Community Club.
Ms Yap Yihui, a Dunman High School alumnus who is currently a University of Virginia undergraduate, was part of the founding batch of four students who independently initiated the project, as they wanted to do more for their community.
The 21-year-old said news stories highlighting loneliness among the elderly during the Covid-19 pandemic spurred her to start the group.
