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.
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.
I am a huge fan of the “Saga” (https://aware.org.sg/saga/) podcast, which documents the saga surrounding gender-equality group AWARE, the Association of Women for Action and Research. Themes from the 2009 saga, poignantly highlighted across the 12 episodes, are still relevant in 2021 Singapore. Because I am a podcast junkie, speaking with Kelly Ng and Jasmine Ng, writers and producers of “Saga”, was my chance to learn about how they conceptualised and produced the podcast as well as the many challenges they faced.
With so many aid and assistance schemes scattered across organisations, ministries, and institutions, how should social workers and volunteers identify the most relevant ones for the individuals and communities with whom they work? In response, Tan Weilie created SchemesSG (http://schemes-sg.online/), a searchable, indexable directory of schemes in Singapore. We hear more about how he got started with a minimum viable product and his own list, before we appeal to you, our listeners, to contribute to his crowdsourcing request.
socialservice.sg 