Mainly I Love Kids (MILK)

Share-a-Meal Compassion Fund – 2007 - 2008

Mainly I Love Kids (MILK) is a Singapore-based NGO with the mandate to advocate the welfare of children and their families to make sure that they are alleviated from poverty and have access to good education while being instilled with the tools to have a happy and successful life. With its NGO education partners, MILK provides social care, counselling and financial empowerment services to children and their families throughout Singapore.

Kunal was part of the team managing the Share-a-Meal Compassion Fund, a crisis response fund in collaboration between MILK and the Singaporean NGOs Beyond Social Services and Students Care Services. This is a crisis response fund designed to financially support schoolchildren in Singapore whose families may be facing a financial crisis as of consequence to the sudden passing of an accident or sudden illness in their respective families, particularly of a breadwinner whose support is preventing them from spiralling into poverty. The fund gives immediate or timely financial assistance to prevent such a crisis that would cause the students’ families from falling on or below the poverty line or other chronic family problems. 

Kunal primary task was to provide qualitative and quantitative research and analysis for the report, Share-a-Meal Compassion Fund Evaluation Strengthening Practices: Preventing a Cycle of Poverty; which he co-authored with his colleagues. The aim of the report was to evaluate quantitively and qualitatively the extent of the effectiveness of the strengthening practices which the Share-a-Meal Compassion Fund implements for its beneficiaries comprising of schoolchildren and their families.  For this report, Kunal developed and conducted a qualitative and quantitative survey on the financial assistance for the fund’s beneficiaries (i.e. the school children and their families) in order to fully analyse and comprehend on how the fund has impacted their lives financially and socially during a crisis, particularly in terms of school performance of the schoolchildren. In addition, Kunal dedicated a chapter in the report articulating a comparative study of the Share-a-Meal Compassion Fund with similar programmes worldwide such as the two following USA-based initiatives, Homeless Prevention in the Emergency Shelter Grants Program and APHF (American Paediatric Health Fund) Poverty Prevention.

The report is available upon request.