Our Migrant Friends at Jalan Besar Construction Site

One of our more recent and fulfilling engagements was with our migrant friends at a Jalan Besar construction site near Change Our World’s current office. 

Christmas 2018

Our own team, Regina and Jin Siang, along with one of our volunteers Lee Jia Ying, initiated project to prepare Christmas gifts—this included a lunchbox, water bottle, snacks and drinks packed inside a lightweight bag.

Volunteers also crafted personalized Christmas cards to thank our migrant friends for the sacrifices they had made to work in Singapore, and learned how to say thank you in Bengali and Tamil. On 29 December, we went to the construction site to hangout, give out gifts and sing a Christmas carol to spread some festive joy.

Chinese New Year 2019

Some volunteers from Christmas didn’t our giveaways to be one-off initiative, so a few of them got together and went down to the site again, this time bringing oranges, halal chocolates and New Year goodies as well as some care items.

Deepavali 2019 

COW volunteers decided to organise an evening of dinner and games. Many of our volunteers were now friends with many of the workers—so it was a night of Nasi Briyani, warm conversation (despite the language barrier!) and fun.

Many of our migrant friends shared about their homes and what life was like in Singapore. Our volunteers were deeply moved by how positive they were about being in Singapore despite life being hard, and some of us even got to meet and talk to their families via video calls.

It was this series of events that inspired our own Executive Director Regina Loo and regular COW volunteer Mah Wee Yi to start giving lessons to one of our migrant friends—Hassan.
Read about it in Youth Stories.