Stories about workers’ experiences, the many ways our volunteers help, insights and facts that TWC2 have unearthed
Transient Workers Count Too was happily surprised when two unexpected donations came in in the days leading up to Christmas. Vidula (below, at left) brought a cheque for $10,000 -- money she raised by baking 200 cakes and selling them to her friends and contacts. It must have been a hectic few weeks for her.
By Poh De Sheng Perhaps the chief reason foreign workers come to Singapore is the comparatively higher salaries on offer. Men will endure the hardship of separation, crowded living conditions and abominable hours of physical labour in the hope, not just of helping their families at home get by, but of helping their children and siblings
800 By Kimberley Ng Kept in a windowless room with three company representatives patrolling outside and the imminent threat of forced deportation looming over his head, Molla Shahjahan called TWC2 for help. At 11 on the morning of 7 June 2016, Shahjahan had just been discharged after three nights’ stay at Alexandra Hospital following a debilitating
Beginning in 2012, TWC2 treated foreign workers to a nice meal at its annual fund raising event. This year, for a change, we took them to a movie. So Lunch With Heart becomes @theMovie on Sunday 4 December 2016. The film: superhero blockbuster Dr Strange. The venue: The Projector, an independent cinema that TWC2 rented
By Nadira Mohd Iesham Except for the first day, Hosen Mobarak has had to fight to get medical treatment. He has not always succeeded. What began as a broken fingernail ended up requiring surgery -- which, from the sequence of events narrated to me, appears to be a consequence of the employer's obstructive tactics. As
Alex Au, Treasurer of TWC2, represented Transient Workers Count Too at a back-to-back series of meetings and conferences in Dhaka, Bangladesh, first week of December 2016. First in the series was the General Forum of Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA), a network of NGOs working on migration-related issues in the region. TWC2 is a full
By Grigor Barseghyan Bangladesh is a country located in South Asia with a population of 156 million people. The capital city of Bangladesh is Dhaka. From the city and around is where lots of workers come to Singapore. They are not the ones at the bottom of Bangladesh society, they are the people who are more or
By James Mah “Go back home”. Such remarks can be heard infrequently in Singapore, uttered by locals frustrated at the sight of migrant workers on public transport when buses and trains are jam-packed. Most of the time, these comments would be said from the stress of the moment, without any malicious intent. This was not the
By Katia Barthelemy Photos by Dipti Nagpaul-D'Souza, a journalist with The Indian Express One of the nice aspects of volunteering with TWC2 is the reward you feel contributing a bit to restoring migrant workers’ faith in Singapore. The tougher side is that more often than not, you are only confronted with real bad stories and cases. That makes
Clockwise from left: Tan Si Hao, Darryl Mok, Marcus Ong, Huxley Goh and Nguyen Phuong Thao Transient Workers Count Too launched a custom-developed software application in October 2016. It is a complex matrix that is part-database of volunteers, members, donors and other contacts, part-database of volunteering events, and a whole lot of interactive
