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Cat on velvet
This senior gentleman is scrutinising the back of Debbie Fordyce's name card. He's probably wondering: What exactly does this woman do? What mischief does she get up to? Meanwhile, she's seated less than two metres away, smiling politely, but silent as a cat on velvet – as the saying goes.
Welcome to our private hell: 30 men, 4 beds
Last November, Minister of State for Manpower Tan Chuan-jin involved himself personally in a raid conducted against substandard accommodation for foreign workers. In a Facebook post, the minister described the conditions he saw as “abysmal.” I visited Mohamed’s and Bilal's house before they were sent home to Bangladesh this week – they told me
Mohamed and Bilal have gone: 56 workers follow as company is sanctioned by MOM
We at Transient Workers Count Too spend a lot of time talking and counseling men who are desperate to stay and work in Singapore, trying to find out how their cases are progressing and what can be done to help them come to terms with an often brutal bureaucracy. Regular readers
Interactive Akash
Be Bangladeshi worker Akash for a little while -- that's the concept behind the interactive video produced by Nanyang Technological University students Avril and Yanling (lower right inset above) for their final year project. It's a documentary with a twist, taking the viewer through the experiences of a fictional character
Berita Harian spotlights Mohd Khamsya
Mohd Khamsya, one of Transient Workers Count Too's volunteers at our Cuff Road Project, was featured in Berita Harian on Monday, April 2, 2012. The Malay-language newspaper however, omitted mention of Sya's involvement with TWC2, though he had told the reporter about it. Below is an English translation of the
Mr Xu calls our hotline: “I am being sent home tonight.”
5:30 pm. Our social workers Kenneth Soh and Raymond Ang were tidying up their desks -- not to go home, but to set off to Little India where Transient Workers Count Too's soup kitchen operates. Then the phone rang. A worker, speaking in Chinese, introduced himself and said he had
Toothache as existential crisis
By Xinlin Basir Ullah is a stout man with an easy smile. However, when he came to TWC2 last Tuesday, it was not a smile but a face contorted in pain that we saw. He had a bad toothache in his right jaw which had been troubling him for the
Injured worker goes home, loses 13 kg in 7 months
Asad is the man above. The picture on the left was taken in August 2011 before he left Singapore; even then he was slim, around 60 kg. The picture on the right was taken in March 2012, seven months later. He had lost 13 kg and looked ten years older.
SMU students create video sensation from Little India interviews
By Francesca A striking new video of candid conversations between Singapore Management University students and Bangladeshi construction workers has become a YouTube sensation in Singapore. Between its release on March 7, 2012 and the end of the month, more than 37,000 people have viewed the seven-minute student film, “Unsung –
Cloudy case — TWC2 draws the line
This is an uncommon story. It's a story about a case in which Transient Workers Count Too decided we couldn't help any further. Like any organisation, funds and volunteers' time are limited, and if we are uncritical, expending resources on less deserving cases, then more deserving ones go unattended. However,