How do Singapore's poor families get by?
Nurhaida Binte Jantan is making dinner. She is roasting otah-otah, a Malay dish of fish paste wrapped in banana leaves, over a portable stove.
She is a 29-year-old unemployed single mother with six children from five to 13 years old. She lives in a tiny flat, just 30 square metres, with little furnishing.
There is no dining table, so the children eat their otah-otah with rice and chillies crouched on the floor.
The children share the single bedroom - their only bedding is mattresses and thick blankets. Nurhaida sleeps on the sofa in the living room.
She receives weekly groceries from charities, as well as about S$600 ($474, £262) a month in government aid and money from a boyfriend. But she admits that it is difficult to make ends meet. She has not been able to afford asthma medicine for her second daughter for months.
"No one can afford to get sick in this house because our finances are too tight. It's quite tough and a struggle for me to be raising them up," she said.
"I have to look after this house 24/7… so for me if I were to find a job, it would have to be a night job, so that once they are in bed, I can go out and the older kids can watch the young ones."
What is surprising about Nurhaida's story is that she lives in Singapore, one of the wealthiest countries in the world. But it is also one of the most costly.
