When Nurhisyam Noorzailan, 23, started his internship with the Migrant Workers’ Centre (MWC), little did he expect for the experience to change his life. A second-year Singapore Management University (SMU) student, the internship was part of his university curriculum.
“What really struck me most was that the target audience of this organization - migrant workers. Here is something very real because it’s people you’re dealing with, someone’s livelihood,” he shared.
During his month-long stint, Nurhisyam had the opportunity to visit migrant workers’ dormitories, help out in MWC events such as International Migrants’ Day, and offer assistance to MWC Specialists in resolving migrant workers’ issues.
Supporting Migrant Workers
Inspired by how passionate the MWC staff were, Nurhisyam persuaded his former school, Catholic Junior College, to work with MWC as part of the school’s Service Learning Project (SLP). CJC students can now do a one-week internship programme at MWC.
The SLP aims to cultivate a passion among students for societal issues and greater empathy for others through working with different organisations.
“The objective is for students to hopefully feel more towards issues faced by migrant workers and lend their support to MWC. The support can come in the form of voicing their opinions [in support of migrant workers] when something negative is said about them in the social media or it can be something as big as coming down to lend their support for any of MWC’s operations.” said Nurhisyam.
On its part, MWC hopes that youths will have a greater awareness for the migrant workers’ landscape in Singapore and recognise migrant workers as an integral part of nation building.
His internship is over but Nurhisyam still volunteers with MWC under its ‘MWC Kakis’ programme which allows people to volunteer their services whenever they can.
“If we have volunteers that can augment our manpower on an informal basis as and when needs arise to respond to requirements, then I think we will be able to become more nimble and flexible,” said MWC’s Executive Director (Strategy), Bernard Menon.
Quick Look
Want to be a volunteer?
Call the MWC hotline at: (+65) 6536 2692 or visit www.mwc.org.sg to find out more.
Original article written Joshua Joseph, and can be found in NTUC This Week (13 July 2014)
