Somewhere in Singapore right now, a community cat is eating dinner off a piece of art, and that isn’t a figure of speech. It’s an actual bowl printed with the cats from Yip Yew Chong’s Chinatown murals, sitting on a five-foot way with a real tabby crouched over it.
That’s Cats of Chinatown, the first edition of a community cat feeding bowl series from Animal Human Alliance (AHA), launched on 17 September 2026. The bowls are free, with no payment, no application and nothing for a feeder to prove. AHA founder Chow Wah Chan funds them himself and sends them out alongside cat food raised through donations from animal lovers.
Why the Bowl Matters
Anyone who has walked past a void deck at 7am knows the problem. Food gets left on newspaper, on a plastic lid or on the bare ground, and by mid-morning it’s a mess somebody else has to look at. That mess is where most of the friction between feeders and neighbours starts, and it’s rarely because the feeder doesn’t care.
The bowls are made from food-grade kraft paper and hold both food and water, which is the quiet detail that carries the whole idea. Water is the thing feeders skip most often, because it’s heavy and awkward to lug across an estate, and a cat in Singapore heat needs it more than it needs another scoop of kibble.
“Feeding community cats is about more than simply giving them something to eat. We want them to have access to complete food and nutrition, as well as a clean place to eat and drink from,” said Chow. “By providing feeders with the bowls alongside the food raised with the support of animal lovers, we hope to make their work a little easier while encouraging clean and considerate feeding in the community.”
Around 20 independent feeders have them so far, and that figure is the design rather than a shortfall. These are the people who show up alone before work with a plastic bag and nobody behind them, so AHA is meeting them where they already stand instead of building a scheme they would have to join.
Mural Cats Leave the Wall
Yip Yew Chong’s Chinatown murals are the ones everybody has stopped in front of for a photo, all shophouse life and street scenes in that warm, slightly nostalgic palette. The cats painted into them were never decoration, and they still stalk the same five-foot ways that the Five Footway Festival built an entire event around.
“Community cats have always been part of our community and that was why they were featured in my murals,” said Yip. “For the mural cats to appear with cats rescued from Chinatown on Gold-D’s feeding bowl is very meaningful. I hope this project helps to raise awareness of community cats and to encourage people to treat community cats with compassion.”
Here’s the bit that lifts the design above a nice print job. Alongside Yip’s painted cats, the bowl carries real cats from Chinatown that Chan adopted from fellow rescuers and now keeps for life, so painted strays and rescued strays from the same few streets end up on the same piece of kraft paper. That’s better public art than plenty of what hangs indoors, and the National Gallery’s City of Others exhibition spent a whole show arguing that art belongs to the streets it came from.
The Cats Behind the Bowl
The bowls sit on top of something heavier. Chan takes in the animals that wait longest for a home: sick, ageing, abandoned, and FIV-positive and FeLV-positive cats. FIV and FeLV are feline immunodeficiency virus and feline leukaemia virus, two conditions that scare adopters off because they mean a shorter life and a bigger vet bill, so cats carrying them run out of options fast.
Chan’s answer is to keep them himself, giving them a permanent home and seeing them through rather than sponsoring them from a distance. AHA also runs the Rahula FeLV Sanctuary, named after a rescue cat whose care shaped how Chan approaches animal welfare in the first place.
Chan traces that loop further back. In a February 2024 interview, he described himself as an anthropologist by training and said his journey into animal welfare began when he adopted Ken Ken and Gold-D, two cats with Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV). Their care inspired the Gold-D brand.
Rescue animals have since gone on to model for Gold-D, AHA’s pet food brand, which means a cat nobody wanted can become the face of a product supporting the next rescue. It’s a tidy loop, and it explains why the bowl carries faces instead of a logo.
The Framework and the Bowl
This lands while Singapore is mid-conversation about cats. The Cat Management Framework sets out measures for responsible pet cat ownership and the humane management of community cats, which has moved the subject from a neighbourhood grumble into policy.
Frameworks set rules, but they don’t hand anybody a bowl. What AHA is doing sits in the gap between the policy and the person crouching by a drain at 6.45am, and a free kraft bowl is about as unglamorous as a fix gets. Series Two is already in development with a design inspired by Singaporean fashion designer Benny Ong, which suggests AHA has worked out that the art is what makes people listen to the hygiene message underneath!
🗓️ Launched: 17 September 2026
📍 Where: Independent feeders across Singapore
🐾 Series One: Cats of Chinatown, with Yip Yew Chong’s mural cats and rescued Chinatown cats
📦 Material: Food-grade kraft paper, holds food and water
🆓 Cost to feeders: Free, not sold commercially
🙋 How to get one: Through AHA directly
👥 Reach so far: Around 20 independent feeders
🎨 Coming next: Series Two, inspired by fashion designer Benny Ong
Grassroots work like this runs on people knowing it exists, so read up on what Chan and his team are doing at Animal Human Alliance and chip in to the community cat food programme, which is the recurring cost since the bowls are already paid for. Then keep an eye out for Series Two, because a cat eating off a fashion designer’s artwork in a void deck is exactly the kind of small, stubborn good news this island does well.
Photos and Visuals courtesy of Animal Human Alliance.
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