Where Your Dollars Went

In 2022, 94.0 percent of TWC2’s spending went towards charitable activities, benefiting our clients in a direct or relatively direct way. This high percentage is typical of most years, though the Covid-19 years had even higher figures due to vastly greater charitable spending during the peak of the pandemic. We remain proud of our frugality regarding overheads.

“Charitable activites” and “Governance” are two of the three main classifications of expenditure. The third is “Fundraising costs” (also known as “Cost of generating funds”) for which we spent nothing in 2022. That’s why there is no slice for this type of spending in the pie chart.

The numbers behind both the pie charts on this page — and the table below providing the detailed breakdown — come from the externally audited accounts for 2022. Our financial year coincides with the calendar year.

TWC2’s accounts are audited in accordance with the Charity Accounting Standard (CAS), which Singapore’s Commissioner of Charities recommends non-profit organisations abide by.

TWC2 runs a considerable variety of charitable activities in order to realise our mission of

  • assisting workers in need of urgent support (e.g. meals, shelter and transport subsidies),
  • helping them access available avenues of redress, and
  • advocating for better policies concerning labour migration.

The split by type of charitable activity can be seen from the pie chart below.

Previous years

See also

Detailed numbers behind the two pie charts can be seen from the table below. Please note that ‘$’ refers to the Singapore Dollar.

EXPLAINING THE CATEGORIES

Singapore’s Charity Accounting System (CAS) makes an important conceptual distinction among three broad types of expenditure. They are:

Cost of generating funds

These are expenses incurred by activities whose purpose is to raise funds. TWC2 generally avoids organising splashy fund-raising events, relying instead on appealing to donors either through personal contact or through social media.

In 2022, we didn’t spend anything at all on fundraising.

Cost of charitable activities

This category forms the bulk of our 2022 spending — about 94.0% of total expenditure in the year. As shown in the second pie chart above, this category can be further split by programme or purpose.

Governance costs

These are expenses that would have to be incurred by the organisation even if we did little by way of charitable activities. They include

  • accounting costs;
  • audit fees;
  • bank charges;
  • a share of rent and office supplies;
  • a share of telecommunication costs;
  • the cost of holding an Annual General Meeting;
  • and whatever is needed to comply with law.

In 2022, we spent only $55,695 or 6.0% of total expenditure on these functions.

OUR VARIOUS CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES IN 2022

Our free meals programme, benefitting out-of-work migrant workers, is one of the largest of our projects in terms of expenditure. Not only is nourishment essential for human life, this programme creates an easy, welcoming contact point for injured and salary-unpaid workers to come and talk to our volunteers. We are right on the street, and it is not in the least intimidating to walk up and talk to us.

Simple queries can be handled by our volunteers. Workers with more complex problems are referred to our main office where help from social workers will be forthcoming.

Our social work assistance comes under the moniker ‘Social Worker Always There’ or SWAT for short.

Our expert staff provide advice and case assistance to workers in need. Common types of assistance provided by social workers include:

  • Calculating what their correct salaries and overtime pay should be and assiting them in filing a claim when needed;
  • Advising workers about their rights when employers become abusive or unreasonable, including helping workers flee when trapped;
  • Helping workers make police reports when assaulted, confined or cheated;
  • Helping them access medical care when ill or injured, often having to overcome obstacles created by employers;
  • Assisting them in filling forms and communicating with government departments — many workers aren’t confident in English;
  • Helping them open bank accounts, or obtaining past statements;
  • Ensuring they are paid their due compensation.

As can be seen from the list, our social workers fill a critical need. The salary costs, phone, wifi, training and incidental expenses of social workers, and a share of rent, make up the bulk of this spending.

In order to carry out our many activities, TWC2 needs a multi-purpose space. We rent the upper floor of a shophouse in Little India as our ‘DaySpace’.

Among the many uses it is put too are:

  • Safe space in the day for workers to rest in quiet;
  • Registration of clients and consultation (especially when they come in big groups, too big for our office to accommodate);
  • Emergency shelter when workers have had to flee company accommodation in fear;
  • Volunteer induction and training;
  • Public talks;
  • As a location where other charity groups can conduct joint activities with TWC2 (e.g. free medical check-ups).

Effectively, DaySpace is TWC2’s frontline service delivery location that is easy for Bangladeshi and Indian workers to find. It is also a space for organising volunteers and service delivery.

The FareGo project provides unemployed migrant workers with transport subsidies. This is an area where regulations (and MOM) provide no help to workers at all. Employers are not mandated to help foreign workers with their transport costs even though hospitals require them to show up for their doctor appointments or physiotherapy, and MOM itself requires workers to travel long distances to get their passes renewed or to attend case conferences.

Failure to show up could jeopardise their work injury claims or immigration status. Our transport subsidies provide welcome relief for an overlooked need.

Although employers are required by law to pay for medical care, some injured workers still find difficulty getting treatment. Employers may deny responsibility or fall back on payments. Hospitals may suspend treatment if getting payment from an employer proves difficult. Although the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) does intervene if necessary, this can take months, prolonging pain and suffering or jeopardising a full recovery.

Moreover, during the lengthy period recovering from a work injury, a few workers are hit with an unrelated illness and need to see a doctor or dentist. TWC2 steps in when treatment is urgently needed.

We have a small programme to assist workers with the cost of housing.

Housing is supposed to be the employer’s responsibility, but there are cases where the employer has made it extremely difficult (e.g. through threatening behaviour) for the employee to continue living in the company dorm. For his own safety, the worker needs to get his own room in order to keep a distance from the abusive employer. This means the worker needs to pay his own rent. Many of them borrow from friends and relatives to do so.

Those unable to borrow risk being left homeless. TWC2 assists them with rent subsidies. To keep costs within control, the programme operates with extremely strict eligibility criteria.

From experience, this approach of providing subsidies is more flexible than running a shelter in the normal sense, which tends to come with fixed costs and fixed capacity.

Helping migrant workers claim their unpaid salaries is a major part of TWC2’s services. Our social workers and volunteers are well versed in employment law and in the relevant administrative processes. We assist workers in organising their evidence, filing online and we coach them so that they can present their arguments clearly and cogently. The administrative processes require that claimants must represent themselves.

Even when they win their cases, however, the tribunal orders need enforcement. Or a decision may need to be appealed to the high Court or even the Court of Appeal. TWC2 enjoys the support of many pro-bono lawyers who offer their professional services without cost. However, there are ancillary expenses, court fees, disbursements, etc, that need to be shouldered and these are classed as ‘Legal assistance’.

We choose our cases for their strategic value. For example, in 2017/18, we helped Hasan Shofiqul (above left) win his claim in the High Court for overtime wages. The landmark ruling made it clear that employers cannot shirk their responsibility for paying overtime wages just by giving a worker the title of supervisor without meaningful executive authority.

Informing workers that assistance is available from TWC2 is a core activity, which, pre-Covid, we conducted one Sunday a month at different parts of Singapore where migrant workers congregate on their day off. The exercise was mostly powered by volunteers and social workers.

During and after Covid-19, workers were strictly confined in their dorms with limited opportunities to come out. In 2020, TWC2 shifted gears to focus on social media channels in order to reach them. This online approach has since become the main way to reach workers. Today, Outreach costs include advertising on various social media platforms, prizes and give-aways needed from time to time to keep workers engaged, and the occasional physical event at locations near the dorms.

For the injured and salary-unpaid workers under our care, the Discover Singapore team of volunteers takes them out once or twice a month on excursions and other sports-type activities. This alleviates workers’ boredom (and risk of depression) as they often have to wait months or years for case resolution.

The programme keeps them active and builds social rapport. As much as injured workers need medical care, they also need this kind of support for their psychological wellbeing. TWC2 directs a bit of funding to Discover Singapore for their programmes while the team leading this project also sources for direct support from donors for specific activities.

On Sundays, the DaySpace is given over to two affiliated groups of domestic workers for them to conduct classes. They are the Indonesian Family Network and the Filipino Family Network. TWC2 also helps support their activities with a bit of funding, which comes under the category of ‘Enrichment activities’.

On Sunday evenings, the DaySpace is given over to the Migrant Workers Band so that they have a place to rehearse.

The above projects do not comprehensively cover injured and salary-unpaid workers needs. Miscellaneous direct benefits include:

  • buying an air ticket for a worker stranded in Singapore, with no employer responsible for repatriation;
  • giving a worker some money so that he does not go home penniless*
  • helping a worker pay a fee to obtain copies of his hospital records, without which his injury compensation claim is stuck;
  • helping a worker pay for forensic analysis to prove that salary vouchers tendered by an employer in court are forgeries;
  • giving a bit of pocket money to workers who have been thrown out of their jobs because they filed an injury or salary claim, and are left without any income while waiting for their cases to be resolved.

A significant part of this category of expenditure is the disbursement of phone top-ups, especially to workers who have lost their jobs and no longer have income. These workers have ongoing cases, and it is vital that they have the means to stay in contact with us, MOM and hospitals.

*Unfortunately, not all workers with salary claims succeed in getting paid despite good evidence or their best efforts through the Ministry of Manpower’s claim system. The system is imperfect.

Delivery of the above direct services does not come without administrative cost. We need a General Manager and staff to coordinate outreach, donations, volunteers and delivery of services. There are also office and printing costs, computers, wifi and communication costs, etc, without which social work or the delivery of assistance cannot be realised.

Providing direct help to workers in need is not the sum total of TWC2’s mission. An equally important goal is to cure the defects in regulations and social attitudes that cause the inequities we see afflicting foreign workers. To this end, TWC2 conducts a range of advocacy activities, chiefly:

  • Research;
  • Communication with the public via website and social media;
  • Engagement with media;
  • Engagement with interested members of the public, including talks given to school or college groups, and with policy-makers

The above naturally come with incidental expenses even if the main part of the work is done by volunteers.