LHN optimises Coliwoo’s co-living spaces to give back to the community

ABOUT 15 to 20 children living in Boon Lay kick off their weekends by getting help with their homework from volunteers and playing games.

However, these activities do not take place in a traditional classroom setting – the children head to the nearby co-living property at Boon Lay operated and owned by Coliwoo, a subsidiary of property player LHN.

From 10 am to 12.30 pm every Saturday at this Coliwoo’s social lounge, the students and volunteers engage in academic coaching and activities that spur the children’s cognitive development – such as games that teach values such as teamwork. The beneficiaries from Touch Young Arrows Boon Lay Club are aged five to 14, and come from lower-income or single-parent families.

At other times, this space is for Coliwoo’s tenants to socialise and relax, and doubles up as an events space.

For about one-and-a-half hours, the children receive help in English and mathematics in the form of enrichment lessons. After that, they play games and apply the values they learnt to real-life scenarios.

This initiative, which has been ongoing since July this year, is part of LHN’s efforts to give back to the community by optimising its spaces.

On Saturday (Dec 14), instead of having their regular Saturday activities, the volunteers celebrated Christmas with the beneficiaries and their families at Coliwoo at Boon Lay. They did art and craft to make Christmas cards, received gifts and ate a festive meal together.

Serving the wider community

Darren Loh, LHN’s chief strategy officer for Coliwoo, said that since most of the tenants at this property are students or office workers, the early timeframe was chosen for this initiative because the communal space was “under-utilised” at that time.

He added that LHN specialises in space optimisation, which is especially important in Singapore “where space is a constraint”.

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Previously, these activities took place in the Boon Lay vicinity at a resident’s corner of a Housing and Development Board block’s void deck. However, Coliwoo offered a more “conducive” environment for the beneficiaries’ learning with its spaces and resources, Loh said.

Joyce Ang, group head of Touch Integrated Family Group under Touch Community Services, added: “This new conducive space has enabled our young beneficiaries to focus better during academic coaching and participate in enriching activities safely and comfortably.”

Whenever LHN is given the opportunity to redevelop a property from the Singapore Land Authority, it is intentional but flexible about how its spaces are used. “When we go into designing the space, it has to be for something that is meaningful… We think that a social lounge can succeed for our tenants, but we want to go beyond that to serve a greater good,” Loh said.

He added that corporates can “tap their expertise to give back to society”. In LHN’s case, if the space is not utilised, it can be used for other purposes.

Focusing on long-term initiatives

LHN’s partnership with Touch Community Services started in July 2022, when it purchased corporate gifts made by artists with special needs for its events. It also supported seniors with active-ageing efforts.

With this initiative with Touch Young Arrows, LHN is focusing on more long-term and sustained efforts to give back to the community, instead of one-off initiatives.

Loh said: “We should uplift the communities, and provide opportunities and channels for them to grow their potential.”

Ang added that this partnership “brings about greater optimisation of both the spaces and the potential of the children”.

The Boon Lay property will remain under Coliwoo for another two to three years, so Loh hopes to continue running this initiative and examine how it can improve or repurpose the space to be more “productive” for more people.

He added that the group will continue to think about how it can incorporate the “social good” element into its spaces, including at its other properties.