Singaporeans are fortunate enough to enjoy living in a beautiful and clean garden city, with access to excellent infrastructure and quality services. But this would not be possible without the migrant workers who have toiled in difficult conditions to build and maintain the country.
After being inspired by our fellow Singaporeans who were caring for migrant workers in Singapore, we decided to embark on a project to show our appreciation to them.
Instead of the usual tradition of exchanging gifts amongst ourselves, we chose to do something different for Christmas that year. We wanted to do something that was bigger than ourselves and be a blessing to others in the wider community. Led by our awesome young adults Regina, Jin Siang and Jia Ying, we started a project to prepare Christmas gifts for a group of migrant workers in a construction site at Jalan Besar.
The gift would be in a form of a care pack, compromising of practical items that they might need on a daily basis. It included a lunchbox, a water bottle, snacks and drinks all packed inside a lightweight bag. Our young adults came together during the week to put together the individual packs and on top of that, crafted personalized Christmas cards to thank the migrant workers for the sacrifices they had made. The youth also helped with the cards – besides coming up with the snowman design, they translated our well-wishes into Tamil and wrote them on every single card.
Before the visit, we also learnt some words of thanks in various languages including Bengali and Tamil.
On 29 December, we went down to the construction site to give out the gifts, and spent some time befriending them. Then we capped it off at the end by singing a Christmas carol – spreading some festive joy!
Not wanting this to be an one-off initiative, a few of us went down to the site again during Chinese New Year. We gave them soap, chocolates, oranges and number of assChinese New Year goodies.
Our last visit (for now!) was during Deepavali in 2019. This time instead of just a giveaway, we decided to do dinner and games, so that we could have deeper conversations and get to know each and every one of them!
We celebrated Deepavali with our migrant friends on 26 October 2019, bringing Nasi Briyani and drinks for all of them. The smiles on their faces as we had dinner with them were unforgettable, and we managed to make strong connections despite the language barrier. We were inspired by their positivity and the good things they had to say about Singapore. Some of us even got to meet and talk to their families during their video calls!
Not only were these visits very special and meaningful to us, many of the friends that joined us expressed interest in joining us for more similar initiatives in the future.
In our own way, we can Make A Dent in this world together!