By Theresa Tan

HOUSEWIFE Jamaliah Jaafar was at her wits' end after her husband lost his $1,200 a month clerical job last year.

With hardly any savings and an eight-year-old daughter to support, the 49-year-old was getting increasingly frantic by the day and sought out her MP for help.

For the last few months, she has been hawking second-hand goods, such as books and toys, every Sunday at the Tampines Changkat Sunday Market at Tampines Street 11.

Madam Jamaliah says she can earn, on average, $30 to $40 a day - just enough to put food on her family's table for a few days.

She is one of 12 women from low-income families currently on a scheme to help them earn some extra cash by peddling wares at the flea market.

MP Irene Ng, who launched the scheme yesterday, said many of these women had asked her for financial aid at Meet-the-People sessions.

'Besides helping them with financial assistance, I would also encourage them to take up stalls at our Sunday market,' she said.

'But their frequent reply was that they didn't know what to sell, or didn't know where to go to source for goods. They don't have connections and, very often, the confidence to start something new.'

The Tampines Changkat Women's Executive Committee went about sourcing for donated items and passing them on to these women to sell at the market, which has more than 100 stalls peddling household items and other goods every Sunday.

The first donors to the scheme were the British High Commission and the British Council, which donated toys, books and educational games, among other things.

The women, some of whom are single mothers, get to keep any profits and pay a token sum for the donated items, said Ms Tai Meei Huey from the committee. 'We used to give them the donated goods for free, but some don't even bother to set up a stall to sell them.'

Madam Jamaliah, whose husband now has a part-time job at a mosque that pays a daily wage of $20, said: 'I'm very grateful for the chance to set up a stall here.

'Who knows, maybe next time I can start my own business?'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on December 15, 2008.