H O O K E D - When Being Odd Means Making A Difference

When Being Odd Means Making A Difference

Written by Yeo Zhi Qi

A project is a common tool of assessment, designed for the noteworthy purpose of enabling us to practice and apply our theoretical knowledge to a real-life situation or case. Alas, most simply treat it as a grading system.

Yet these undergraduates (Eugene Zakarihtan, Daryl Elijah Tay, Elizabeth Tan, Xu Ren Shao, Nur Shafiza Shafie, Arlin Aslam, Kunal Patel, Robina Ang, Hassan Sheraz, and Valerie Yek) were not about to take the easy way out for their module - Community Service and Social Action (GEK 1052) - as they produced an extraordinary project entitled "Mild treatment of migrant workers (Myths, Causes and Consequences)".

Read on as Hooked explores the various issues surrounding migrant workers in Singapore, with the help of our fellow undergraduates.

When it comes to project work, many of us have been guilty of the following behaviors at one instance or another, when completing our projects:

Starting the project at the eleventh hour and completing it in the wee hours of the morning on the day of submission.
Choosing the easiest topic with the least amount of legwork, research and analytical exercise required.
Referring extensively to one or two sources for research but reframing our project report to make it seem as if we've pored through scores of research material to formulate our thesis.
Being clueless about our project such that we had trouble explicating our project thesis mere hours after submitting it.

In other words, many of us have not been able to exploit the projects that we were assigned in the past as platforms for us to practice what we have learnt in class, as well as question what we have learnt. During those instances, we were not able to gain significantly from our projects as there was minimal change in our understanding of the subject matter, much less the level of our intellect.

Hence, it is all the more awe-inspiring when one hears about a project group who brought new meaning to the phrase, "taking the lesson out of the classroom". Whilst doing so, they managed to effectively create positive change not only for themselves, but also for the local community at large, specifically their community of reference - migrant workers in Singapore.

        Why migrant workers?

        According to our change-makers, they were contemplating to do a project on either disabled or migrant workers. Given that the plight of disabled workers had been bandied around in the media more frequently relative to that of migrant workers, the group felt drawn to the under-exposed topic of migrant workers.

        Their interest in the topic was in part stimulated by the challenge of doing a project on a topic in which there was a very thin collection of literature on it. Moreover, the comprehensiveness and complexity of the topic with its far-reaching or "macro-level" implications that included class issues as well as the global division of labor further heightened the group's interest in the topic.

        It is evident that our change-makers were not about to shun hard work.

        Migrant workers itself is an umbrella-term that is generally further demarcated by the gender of the workers. The more visible gender is undoubtedly the females in their roles as domestic workers. Hence, the group decided to focus on male migrant workers. They felt that the issues and problems faced by the latter group are usually swept under the carpet and hence made concerted efforts in highlighting their plight.

The group felt that the best way to tackle the crux of the problem, which was the under-exposure of the plight of the male migrant workers, was to create a platform that would enable the NUS community to be more acutely aware of the predicament of the migrant workers.

They were secure in the support of the lecturer of the course, Dr Daniel Goh, to proceed with their plans of initiating a dialogue with the NUS community on the subject of male migrant workers. Dr Goh also went out of his way to support the group's initiative, referring them to the non-governmental organization, HOME (Humanitarian Organization of Migration Economics).

        By collaborating with HOME, the group organized an exhibition and a dialogue session in NUS. They sent out mass e-mails to the NUS student body and also organized a three-day photo exhibition in campus prior to the dialogue session to raise awareness and market their upcoming dialogue session.

        One of the members of the group, Eugene remarked that, "being in university is a good thing as it sensitizes us to a lot of issues that has been happening."

        With speakers from both ends of the spectrum that included representatives from non-governmental organizations, Bridget Lew, President of HOME, Jolovan Wham, managing director of HOME, and John Gee, president of Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), as well as two migrant workers from Bangladesh, issues such as maids' day-off entitlements were raised.

        The migrant workers also spoke about the physical and economic exploitations they faced, such as the lack of medical benefits in the form of subsidies for hospital stays and insufficient time for recuperation after sustaining injuries.

        Even though there was an exchange of ideas during the dialogue session, the group observed that many of the questions were posed to the representatives from the non-governmental organizations.

        There appeared to be a general lack of interest to find out more about the plight of the migrant workers since there was not much interaction between the student body and the migrant workers. However, they also reasoned that the different linguistic abilities of the dialogue participants could have hindered the development of the dialogue.

        As extraordinary as the efforts of the team were, they were not without their critics.

        During the Question and Answer segment, a member of the audience criticized their seemingly passive approach to dealing with the problem and suggested more concrete ways to help. He maintained that the group could have done more "practical stuff" to alleviate the problem, instead of just having the dialogue session.

        Overall, the atmosphere in the dialogue session was engaging, with some insightful questions being raised that hearteningly reflected a growing interest in the plight of migrant workers. Other questions encouragingly highlighted the efforts of the questioners in grappling with the dissonance between the realities of the plight of migrant workers and their theoretical knowledge. The group hoped that the session helped to "bridge theory and practice, since after all, knowledge should be made useful."

        Besides the dialogue session, the group also reached out to the migrant workers by making personal visits to their home shelters.

        Recounting their experience, the members highlighted the poor living conditions that they witnessed, such as how 30 people were required to share one bathroom and a common kitchen. With two rows of double-decker beds lined along the walls and a narrow walkway, their accommodation was very cramped.

        The group decided to take a proactive stance in initiating at least a marginal improvement in the living conditions of the migrant workers by sourcing for sponsors to fund the purchase of household furniture for the workers, such as beds.

        A small initiative, with a modest aim of raising awareness of the plight of migrant workers and changing the stereotypical perceptions of the NUS community to this marginalized group of people was elevated to a larger scale with national press coverage.

        The project was featured in The Straits Times and highlighted as an example of the initiatives being carried out by the youth in Singapore to change stereotypes. The publicity has allowed for a greater audience, beyond the NUS student body, to get exposed to the plight of migrant workers. As the press is able to cast a wider readership net, the group was able to get their message across to an audience size that far surmounted their initial target audience.

        This group of students challenged the commonly held notions of what school projects entail and took a brave step in treading the unfamiliar path. As such, they were not the only ones who benefited from their project. We could do with more of such projects.

        So, the next time you start working on a project, think big. You never know where it might lead to. HOOKED

Comments
Written by Guest on 2008-02-28 09:49:02
this is one of the more substantial pieces in a while. actual facts worth knowing. not a throwaway piece.

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