Migrant Workers Week 2016

From 9th to 13th May 2016, a task force from the Seventh Saints Advocate decided to advocate for the migrant workers in Singapore.

Migrant workers are non-Singaporeans who work in Singapore, ranging from construction workers to foreign talents. However, this Migrant Workers Week focused the lower income group of migrant workers such as construction workers and maids. This is to bring awareness about the lives they live and to remove the stigma that many Singaporeans have against them.

For this project, the task force worked closely with the Migrant Workers Centre (MWC), which helps migrant workers who face problems such as not receiving their salary. MWC also hosted a May Day celebration for migrant workers on 15th May, and we hoped that through this Migrant Worker’s Week, some Saints will sign up to volunteer for this event.

From 9th to 13th May, daily announcements were made, stating facts about migrant workers. This helped the Saints to get to know more about them. A booth was also set up at the school’s fitness corner. The booth included articles about migrant workers in Singapore and provided more information about migrant workers in Singapore. There were also daily quizzes to let Saints find out how much they really know about migrant workers.

We also encouraged Saints to write or draw notes or drawings on pieces of paper. These pieces of paper will be combined and made into a scrapbook for the migrant workers which will be displayed at SCAPE on 4th June 2016. We received very good response for the notes!

Through this, the task force members learnt so much more about migrant workers and shared their knowledge with the other Saints. They also learnt more leadership skills and how to be a better advocate for the community. Here are some of their post project reflections:

“Quite a number of students visited our booth to write messages for the migrant workers, expressing their gratitude in simple words and drawings. Some even contributed to our booth by writing the translations of “Thank you” in their native languages. I was honestly very touched by their sincerity. This made me recognise the care and empathy that the student body in SAJC have the capacity to show. A majority of those who came to our booth, I observed, were scholars from other countries. I suppose that they would have a better understanding of what the migrant workers go through, and I felt happy to be the bridge between them and the migrant workers, to be able to connect them and let them communicate.

The daily morning announcements were also a great avenue for us to speak to the whole student body. I realised the influence that we actually do have, and that we must use it the best we can for the good of SAJC saints as well as the group that we are advocating for. It is very much a privilege and a great responsibility.”

-Maxine

“The response we received at our booth was much  better than expected.The saints were willing and happy to come down to write a short message for the migrant workers and they wrote it with much sincerity. This encouraged me as i felt that our saints have a greater heart of compassion than I expected as youths in Singapore are generally infamously known to be coldhearted. Apart from the writing of messages, the daily questions put up on the board also garnered more responses than I had planned for. We initially had 2 questions for the whole week as we thought many would be reluctant to answer. However, many saints answered the questions, hence we had to change the question every day.

On a side note, I felt that our task force members did well for the morning announcements as it was the first time for many of us and was quite nerve wrecking to stand up there in front of the whole school alone. Though it was pretty daunting, we did not let our nerves get the better of us and delivered what we had to, hence I feel proud of our task force members for pulling it off well.

All in all, through this whole process of planning and carrying out our proposal, I have learnt that prior preparation is very important and we should have a clear idea of what was going to happen in order for the whole week to run smoothly. I felt that this project has been an enriching experience for me as well as the whole task force. I have learnt how to handle situations on the go, work with people with very different personalities from mine and it has also given me the opportunity  to better understand my task force members and forge friendships with them. In addition, our project is self initiated and on a smaller scale compared to some of the other task forces. Hence it gave us the ability to be flexible and plan whatever activities we deemed fit.  However, this flexibility meant that we had to plan almost everything by ourselves and come up with the ideas which was quite challenging. Though it was difficult, we still managed to do it and everything turned out good, probably better. I am very proud of my task force and happy to have had the opportunity to work with everyone of them. I have benefitted much from this project and I owe the success of this project to every single member! :)”

-Gloria

“Looking back, I realize that I’ve learnt so much from this project. I gained so much more knowledge about the plight of migrant workers in Singapore. I also gained an insight as to what they feel and think about working in Singapore, including why they want to work here and how they view Singaporeans.

This project was really meaningful as I did not just learn more about migrant workers. Instead, I shared what I have learnt with other Saints through our Migrant Worker’s week. I learnt how to send my message across to the mass through morning announcements and daily quizzes. We also got Saints to write notes or draw something for migrant workers which will be compiled into a scrapbook. The response was very good and we collected almost 200 notes, with lots of effort put into drawing and writing them. Our Instagram page also gained almost 100 followers in a week. I felt very happy knowing that people were now more aware of the plight of migrant workers and I hope that this will help to remove the stigma which some Singaporeans have against migrant workers.

I have also learnt that it is very important to clarify everything in advance so that there won’t be any misunderstandings that will cause problems at the last minute. I also learnt that an attractive booth is very important in drawing attention for the Saints. In any future booths, I will remember to hang up the banner up from the ceiling instead of the table, so that it will be more noticeable.

All in all, it was a really enjoyable time doing this project and through it, I gained lots of valuable knowledge.”

-Calista