A Sense of Familiarity and Warmness
“I hope more Singaporeans would take notice that migrant workers like us travel miles to make a livelihood and appreciate our contribution” Liu Yu Guang is a 45 year old migrant worker from Hebei, China. Back home, he dropped out of primary school as it was too expensive for his family to pay […]
Positive Changes through a New Community
Many migrant workers base their decisions to work in Singapore on recruitment advertisements that they chance upon in their hometown in the form of physical posters. Unlike others, Ying Bin heard of the opportunity to work in Singapore from the radio. Deciding that he needs an improved livelihood to support his wife and […]
Getting Back Up on His Feet
Hossain is a 35 year-old migrant worker from Faridganj, Bangladesh. Before he came to Singapore, he worked in an insurance company for 12 years and studied until secondary school. He has an 8 year-old daughter and a 4 year-old son, and has been married to his wife for 9 years. Hossain took a […]
Paying it Forward
JJ is a 40-year-old Chinese migrant worker from Taizhou, Jiangsu. He first came to Singapore in 2006 after his ex-boss in China ran away with money and has worked in three different construction jobs since. In July 2018, he was injured when metal shards entered his left eye. Because of his injury, his […]
Some Things are Taught, Most Things are Caught,
Ask any staff or intern at HealthServe, and they’d agree that it’s very hard to catch Jivee for an interview. Though he’s one of our Desker residents, he’s always out and about. So when I saw Jivee walk in gingerly, I was both surprised and worried. He looked like he was in pain […]
Home Away from Home
If I had to nominate somebody as testament to how many Bangladeshis live more exciting lives than Singaporeans, that somebody would be M. His stories -that are best left undisclosed- are sometimes so absurd that the only way I know to react is to laugh, and then feel bad for laughing. He tells me about […]
The Calm After the Storm
Y is a migrant worker in Singapore and also a university graduate who tried to start his own enterprise in the last year of his university back home. He came to Singapore at the age of 21 and in fact, he is more alike than different from us. It heightened my awareness that […]
Lost and Found
Our longest staying Chinese migrant worker, T, has finally gone home after staying in Singapore for the past 5 years. I was privileged to be part of his last few days in Singapore as he shared his story with me. T came to Singapore to work back in 2013. However, due to a […]
An Unlikely Friendship
Li Zheng Yuan “Thank you for hosting us,” Paul says, his eyes sparkling expectantly. It was a sentence taught to him by a teacher from the United World College, during a joint outreach program between the school and HealthServe. He says that to everyone now, at every opportunity he gets. Paul, or Li […]
Accompanying a Migrant Worker to the Hospital
Accompanying a Migrant Worker to the Hospital By Denise Goh The first thing anyone would notice about Wang Zhi Guo is his rather animated personality and his loud, distinctive voice, which often announces itself in the corridor before you even see him. One of the younger migrant brothers, Zhi Guo is only 38 […]
Introducing Humour and Light-heartededness in Wan Jun’s Life
By all accounts, 26 January 2017 should have been just like any other ordinary day in Wan Jun’s life. His 16 years of experience in doing plastering work, especially in Singapore, made him incredibly seasoned at his job, and he knew the ins-and-outs of the business intimately. And this construction work was the […]
A Second Home
Our migrant brother, K (name changed), is a regular face at HealthServe. One can often catch him bustling around purposefully at our Desker centre – from manning the coupon collection at our Desker Food Project, to joining our migrant brothers in cooking lunch on Wednesdays for everyone else, and even tidying up and […]
Ming Quan, the Sole Breadwinner
“I have no dreams. I’ve never had any dreams. Dreams are only for idealists; in actual fact, reality is bitter. Dreams aren’t worth pursuing, because as you’re chasing them, they’ll gradually become murkier, and at the end of the day, you’ll have no choice but to abandon them. For my generation, our chance […]
Learning Love within Community
Normally quiet and serious, Zhai Fu Min was visibly shaken as he stepped into the HealthServe Geylang office on 6 June 2017, the long-anticipated day that he was due to fly back to Xi An, China. As he talked to Willy, one of the HealthServe staff, his tragic story unfolded. The night before, […]
A Tentative Smile Grows
It comes as a bit of a surprise when Sasikumar really takes to the Cajun at HealthServe, drumming a steady beat on it with one hand and bobbing his head to the rhythm. Very quiet and reserved, Sasikumar is a man of few words, and at first, this character carries into his Cajun-playing. […]
