Green serving tray on a selection of canned beverages

“The hunger report”: Singapore’s first nationally representative food insecurity study

While reports of food insecurity have previously featured in the media, Singapore’s first nationally representative food insecurity study documented that about 10 per cent of Singaporean households experienced food insecurity at least once in the last 12 months, and that only 22 per cent of these food-insecure households were receiving food support from an organisation. Published by the Lien Centre for Social Innovation and supported by The Food Bank Singapore, “The hunger report: An in-depth look at food insecurity in Singapore” also reports causes and consequences of food insecurity and offers recommendations.

A HDB block with clothes left out to dry

“Mind the chasm”: The pandemic’s devastatingly uneven impact and the insecurities of low-income families across multiple, intersecting dimensions

This month, in the same week that the Department of Statistics revealed that households in the bottom 10 per cent were the group hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, with their monthly total earnings from work falling by 6.1 per cent, Beyond Social Services published its “Mind the Chasm” report.

Hairdresser giving a haircut at a HDB void deck

The Birthday Collective: Going beyond the “essay-writing crowd” and holding conversational space upon “uncommon ground”

What started as a published collection of stories to coincide with Singapore’s National Day has now evolved into “The Birthday Collective”, a not-for-profit that creates and holds space for conversations that matter to the country. With its editor Cherie Tseng, we discuss the collective’s initiatives beyond the “essay-writing crowd”, the value of giving conversational seats to children and centring their voices, and the importance of meeting communities and individuals where they are. We conclude on what she means by the “uncommon ground” and the collective’s plans for the future.