Existing solution: MWAW Lunch Tag and ICOON

Standard

• MWAW 2016 • Lunch Tag #1 & #2

Have you ever wondered how a genuine conversation with people who helped built the infrastructure of your home will go? Do you want a chance to meet people you would otherwise pass by, and actually interact with them?

The two Lunch Tags allow two people who would have never otherwise met to sit down and connect over a simple lunch. RSVP here: http://tinyurl.com/rsvpmwaw !

Lunch Tag #1
31st Jan, 9am – 1pm, at Yale-NUS College Elm Dining Hall
This will kick-start with a friendly lohei decoration competition involving both participants and migrant workers. After which, everyone will be paired up to have lunch together at the Yale-NUS College Elm Dining Hall.

Lunch Tag #2
3rd Feb, 11.30am – 3pm, at Botanic Gardens
In the style of a picnic, this Lunch Tag will take place out in the nature at Botanic Gardens. There will also be games where participants will interact with foreign domestic workers from the HOME Shelter in a different setting than what we usually do.

Through a meal, people could have a more personal conversation to know each other. How would my FYP be different from this existing event is that:

  • It would not be a big event. For a meet up, there will only be 3 locals and 3 migrant workers.
  • I will document each session in the form of either photography, audio, or video, to be later be compiled for my installation.
  • I will design a set of conversation starters, accompanied by English and Tamil or Bengali translation. If needed, I will also design pictograms to help the conversation flow seamlessly.

Personal encounter with migrant workers

Standard

I am thankful to be involved in Human Library as a volunteer as I got the chance to meet friendly migrant workers and interview them. Without this conversation, I would not know about their lives other than working as construction workers. They are a group of poets who meet on daily basis to discuss about poetry. Through this community, they get to know people, foreigners and locals, who share the love of poetry.
whatsapp-image-2016-09-30-at-10-56-17-am

Zakir Hossain, third from the left, won Migrant Poetry Competition in 2014 and 2015. As reported by The Middle Ground, Mr Hossain said that he felt many Singaporeans had harboured negative feelings against migrant workers after the 2013 Little India riots, which involved about 400 people. He was pleasantly startled at how “this competition has opened the door for many people to change their negative views about migrant workers” and wishes for more of such competitions to be held.

This morning, Zakir Hossain sent me the link to his TedX Talk he delivered last year in NTU. Enjoy 🙂


Thoughts for FYP:
I definitely want to hold a similar small gathering like this for the public to get to know the migrant workers on a more personal level. In return, the migrant workers will also get to know the participants.

Look refugees in the eye: Powerful video experiment breaks down barriers

Standard

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/look-refugees-in-the-eye/

The film shows natural, spontaneous reactions between people meeting for the first time in a warehouse near Berlin’s old Cold War-era crossing, Checkpoint Charlie. The refugees came from Syria and Somalia and had lived in Europe for less than a year.


Thought

In this experiment, it is clearly shown that by having a communication, the barrier between people of different culture will melt down.