Remember when COVID-19 first broke out in the migrant worker dormitories, affecting over 50,000 vulnerable workers? That was March 2020.
Since then, many things have happened. What started as Kitesong Global’s little effort to use simple illustrations to convey health messages to our migrant brothers quickly expanded into a series of 4 booklets in 8 languages for different migrant worker facilities—with Prof Dale Fisher, chairman of the Global Outbreak Alert Response Network (GOARN) eager to integrate it as part of the national RCCE (Risk Communication and Community Engagement) strategy.
Over a hundred volunteers around the world and National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine jumped on board to help with our translation and production work, enabling the team to engage workers through booklets, posters, videos, and social media.
These resources became platforms through which face-to-face engagements with workers could be carried out, allowing us to better understand their needs and challenges.
The initiative snowballed to form My Brother SG, a nationwide network of partners passionate about supporting migrant workers through heartfelt social engagement, which attracted the support of the World Health Organization and over a dozen key national stakeholders.
To date, we have distributed over 130,000 health booklets and 25,000 posters. Dozens of workshops and outreaches have been organized, with My Brother SG’s Facebook page generating over 24,000 followers in the first 5 months.
As the network and programmes around vaccination and mental well-being continue to expand, we trust more of our brothers will be touched.
Indeed, what started out as a little effort has grown into something bigger than we had imagined. So never despise the little you have to offer—you just never know what it might grow into.
Watch the full story here.
Learn more about our work with My Brother SG at www.mybrother.sg
For more information on implementing RCCE approaches, see My Brother SG’s publications featured on: