Building up community trust seen as crucial in crisis such as Covid-19

Building up community trust - such as among neighbours and with migrant workers - is crucial in a crisis like Covid-19, said panellists during a virtual forum yesterday.

Reflecting on his experience, executive director of the Migrant Workers' Centre (MWC) Bernard Menon said trust and unity, as well as faith in Singapore's public institutions, underpinned the community response to help migrant workers in lockdown last year.

"The fact that our NGOs and people had this amazing ability to overlook where we disagree and stand together - I think that struck me through the whole experience as the, if I may use a bit of a cliche, secret weapon that we had," he said.

While public institutions like the Manpower Ministry and the Home Team helped to ensure the workers' basic needs were met, the MWC worked with partners to bring in supplies such as masks, he said. The MWC also formed an ambassador network of migrant workers, all living in the dormitories.

"We never knew how valuable they would become until the dormitories came under lockdown," he said, adding that the ambassadors number about 5,000 and they still work with the MWC today.

Mr Menon was speaking during a session, titled Community Responses to Covid-19, part of the inaugural Temasek Shophouse Conversations forum organised by the Temasek Foundation and held at the Temasek Shophouse in Dhoby Ghaut.

The panel included Associate Professor Ong Biauw Chi, chair of the medical board at Sengkang General Hospital; Mr Wong Heang Fine, group chief executive of Surbana Jurong; and Ms Mae Tan, co-founder of Kampung Kakis, a community initiative to help connect needy seniors with helpful volunteers in the neighbourhood.

Ms Tan said the initiative allowed people in the community to build trust. "What we've realised through Kampung Kakis is that by empowering the individual in the community, they can really step up, play a part and make a big difference," she said.

Mr Wong, who supervised the team that set up Singapore Expo as a community care facility in April, said among the lessons he learnt was to understand the needs of the community that was being served.

The team was told that one of the biggest requirements for the facility was to have a very good Wi-Fi system, whereas it had been more concerned with issues such as fire safety, and whether there were enough showers.

"Wi-Fi was never top of mind. So we had to scramble to make sure that we had, in every hall, a very superb Wi-Fi system for them. Because that was one of the things that kept (the patients) engaged."

Prof Ong, who was on the ground as medical teams from her hospital were deployed to nearby migrant worker dormitories, said one of the things that struck her was how the bonds grew between those that helped out.

"The Fast (Forward Assurance and Support Teams) team at S11 (dormitory) - many of them volunteered to stay on, and they were so engaged and we knew each other so well that it became almost like a community, like a second home."

Temasek Foundation yesterday announced the Youth Action for Pandemics initiative, which is open to those under 40. It calls for ideas for projects that will either help the community to prepare for the next pandemic, or address the impact of Covid-19.