Singapore’s next general election must be held by November 2025, which is still some time away. But whether it is GE2024 or GE2025, with plenty of time and space, we’d like to use the next few months (or the next year) to discuss key election issues with experts and voters. For us, “Before the Ballot” provides that space. Feedback? Suggestions? Or …

With Alfian Sa’at and Ng Kah Gay, we have a thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening conversation about the arts and publishing vis-à-vis civic engagement and political participation in Singapore. What does it mean to be challenged with the unfamiliar? How do we provoke more conversation and action through artistic modalities? And how do we make sense…

In this wide-ranging conversation on community and community-based governance with Aaron Maniam, we cover many diverse but related topics. First, we discuss the global state of democratic governance in the context of community-based governance as well as truth and misinformation. We then learn more about his Ph.D. dissertation comparing public sect…

Today, we have a broad conversation on PE2023 with veteran journalist Bertha Henson. She reflects on Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s landslide win, shares how she got involved in Mr. George Goh’s campaign, and discusses and evaluates the office of the elected presidency in Singapore. In particular, we highlight two bodies: the Presidential Elections C…

What are the experiences of Singaporean academics who have spent time abroad, before returning home and working to reintegrate, both as academics, and as Singapore citizens. Together with her collaborators, in the article - "International academic or citizen scholar?: Singaporean returnees in the global city" - lead author Yasmin Ortiga focused on …

Like the entire PE2023 campaign thus far, the presidential forum offered little beyond scripted platitudes and vague generalities. Be that as it may, Isaac Neo and I sat down after the forum to chat about our general impressions, and how the limits of the forum modality perhaps reflected the limits and ambiguities associated with Singapore's electe…

Singaporeans go to the polls on September 1, 2023 to elect our new president. We choose from three candidates: former senior minister and deputy prime minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, former chief investment officer of sovereign wealth fund GIC Ng Kok Song, and former CEO of NTUC Income Tan Kin Lian. An estimated 300,000 to 400,000 Singaporean yout…

Singaporeans go to the polls on September 1, 2023 to elect our new president. We choose from three candidates: former senior minister and deputy prime minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, former chief investment officer of sovereign wealth fund GIC Ng Kok Song, and former CEO of NTUC Income Tan Kin Lian. An estimated 300,000 to 400,000 Singaporean yout…

Singaporeans go to the polls on September 1, 2023 to elect our new president. We choose from three candidates: former senior minister and deputy prime minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, former chief investment officer of sovereign wealth fund GIC Ng Kok Song, and former CEO of NTUC Income Tan Kin Lian. An estimated 300,000 to 400,000 Singaporean yout…

We're trying something new today, and it's something we've wanted to do for some time. Together with a new co-host, Estella Ho, we've picked a book of interest to discuss and explore. For this episode, the book we've chosen is titled "Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It" by US journalist and s…

Singapore’s members of parliament receive an allowance to engage legislative assistants to help them with their parliamentary questions and speeches. Different members adopt different strategies and use the allowance differently. Some have larger teams who split the allowance, and in other instances volunteers may also be involved. Across two episo…

On this podcast, we've moved away from direct features of charities and social service agencies, not only because there are so many with interesting stories, but also because a greater focus on systemic trends and structural solutions - involving multiple parties - feels more productive. Nevertheless, the story of Glyph Community (https://www.glyph…

Today, we’ll pick up from where we left off previously, focused on the “Future of Asian Philanthropy” reports published by the Asia Philanthropy Circle (APC). We focus on the second report, “Strategies for a Better Future”, in this episode, and we’ll also link our last episode covering the first report. You’ll again hear from Bradley Wo - previousl…

Did you know that Asia is home to more billionaires than any other continent in the world? Wealth Report predicts that the region will see its fastest growth in ultra-high net-worth individuals between 2022 and 2026. The Asia Philanthropy Circle (APC) recently released two reports focused on the Future of Asian Philanthropy. The first is titled “Sc…

Centred on the Singapore government's plan to enact new legislation to prohibit workplace discrimination, the Association of Women for Action and Research, or AWARE, published a position paper with recommendations to address gaps in coverage and implementation related to the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices. Today, we speak with t…

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced in 2021 that the government would enshrine into law the current workplace anti-discrimination guidelines. Since then, the Tripartite Committee on Workplace Fairness, comprising the Ministry of Manpower, National Trades Union Congress, and the Singapore National Employers Federation, has been reviewing the cu…

GST hikes, inflation, and high HDB resale prices. Wherever you go in Singapore, you can’t miss the hottest topic nowadays: the rising cost of living. If you tak boleh tahan, that’s understandable. But what can Singaporeans do about it? Today, we’re joined by three organisers, Kokila from Workers Make Possible and the Transformative Justice Collecti…

With Samantha Lee, we preview the 2023 episodes for our "The Future of…" mini-series, where we chat big ideas with Singaporeans engaged in social initiatives in Asia and beyond. These are the episodes we referenced today: The future of… Water and water scarcity (with Wateroam’s Lim Chong Tee) The future of… Marrying purpose and profit (with StoneSo…

With Isaac James Neo, we preview the 2023 episodes for our "Civic Engagement and Action" mini-series, where we have conversations about expanding communities and spaces for sustained civic engagement and political participation. These are the episodes we referenced today: What’s next for youth climate change activism and action in Singapore? The po…

With assistant professor Tan Shin Bin (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore), we explore her latest journal article centred on Singapore's Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP) as an ethnic desegregation policy. She shares about ethnic and socio-economic segregation as they relate to the EIP, their inverse relationship f…

Throughout the past three episodes, we’ve talked about community work and community development in the present. Today, we’ve gathered three guests - Ng Bee Leng (Director, Community Development), Chuah Xing Jun (Research Assistant), and Emeritus Professor Satvinder Singh (Research Consultant) - in a more open-ended conversation about the future. In…

There is broad consensus that research, evaluation, and evidence-based practice are important. However, to what extent are they compatible with community work and community development, especially when data and knowledge are extracted from participants? Today, we explore both participatory research and practice research with Ng Bee Leng (Director, …

What do community work and community development look like in practice? More specifically, what do they look like in social work practice? In this episode, I’ll first chat with Palvindran S/O Jayram (Manager, Community Hubs), who worked as a social worker before moving to community work. Next, Jermaine speaks with a resident, Lydia Susiyanti (Resid…

Before exploring the details of community work and community development, we ought to understand: What makes a community? More fundamentally, what is a community? Or the community? With Ng Bee Leng (Director, Community Development) and Muhammad Fazeli (Resident and Community Activator, 643 Community Hub), we learn how they describe the community, t…

In this teaser episode, we introduce our four-episode mini-series titled “The Community”, co-produced with AMKFSC Community Services, focused on community work and community development in Singapore. We also meet our mini-series co-host, Jermaine Boh, and describe the content you can expect. This episode is part of “The Community” mini-series, co-p…

On this podcast, I’ve traditionally featured the research and social work and projects of others. I make a small exception today, because I want to share about two recent research journal articles I’ve published, which, I think, in an interesting fashion, draws from earlier episodes I produced for past seasons of this socialservice.sg podcast. I’ve…

"Jom" (Malay for "let's"; jom.media) is Singapore's new weekly digital magazine covering the arts, culture, politics, business, technology, and more in the country. With co-founders Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh, Charmaine Poh, and Tsen-Waye Tay, we ask them about how they got started, their plans to cover civic issues that are somewhat controversial or c…

"Seeking Shelter: Homeless during the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore" is the country's second nationwide street count of its unhoused and homeless, conducted in 2021. With its authors Dr. Ng Kok Hoe and Jeyda Simren Sekhon Atac, we begin by reviewing the first street count and report in 2019. Thereafter, we dive deeper into their most recent report…

With Edward Yee of Givfunds (https://www.givfunds.org/), a non-profit which lends low-cost funds at scale to South Asian social enterprises, and Masref (https://www.masref.ch/), a Swiss fintech which seeks to increase the accessibility of safe and secure saving accounts, we chat about his three big ideas on finance and leaving nobody behind. First,…

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore, the living conditions and well-being of migrant workers have received increased attention. At the same time, and consequently too, during the country’s first circuit-breaker in 2020, there was an intense flurry of volunteerism and donations among concerned Singaporeans. However, since then, ove…

With producers of the Singapore-based “Social Work Made Accessible” podcast, Dominic Soh, Rachel Koh, and Cheong Ming Fa​​ng (https://www.instagram.com/swmadeaccessible/), we chat about how they got started, the different social work episodes and conversations they’ve had, and how they are planning for the future. This episode is part of the "The W…

With Chen Weiwen, the founder of Eyeviser (https://eyeviser.com/), which offers 360-degree eye-care to companies and the public*, we chat about the three big ideas on the future of eye-care and eye-health. First, the shift from treatment to prevention. Second, the role of tech-powered prescription checks. And third, the personalisation of eye-care.…

As part of Save.Me (https://www.screeningstatistics.com/saveme/), Prof. Rosie Ching and her students interviewed almost 3,000 folks in Singapore for the country’s first national survey on sucide. We ask her about the suicide stigma index, the key findings, as well as relevant policy and practice directions. This episode is part of "Making Research …

Today, as part of our “Civic Engagement and Action” mini-series, where we speak to folks about expanding communities and spaces for sustained civic engagement and political participation, I am joined by our co-host, Isaac Neo, a political and security risk analyst. We chat briefly about his GE2020 newsletter and his involvement in a number of other…

Today, as part of our “The Future Of…” mini-series, where we chat about big ideas with Singaporeans engaged in social initiatives in Asia and beyond, I am joined by our co-host, Samantha Lee. Samantha is the founder of StoneSoup Partners, an early-stage fund that invests in companies that do well by doing good in emerging markets in Africa and Sout…

“What is something that brought you joy today?” That’s the question one is encouraged to contemplate as one explores the website of HappyUrns (https://happyurns.org/), an initiative to help different groups of Singaporeans engage meaningfully with death and end-of-life topics with their loved ones. With team members Amanda Swee and Adya Sadanand, w…

Last year, the Lien Centre for Social Innovation published Singapore’s first nationally representative food insecurity study, finding that about 10 per cent of Singaporean households experienced food insecurity at least once in the last 12 months. This year, the centre's updated, second part of "The Hunger Report" explored two related questions. Fi…

Using two child cohorts, Dr. Jonathan Huang and his team at the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research sought to understand - in a journal article - the lifestyle changes experienced by Singaporean children after the country's circuit-breaker as well as the potential long-term outcomes. In our c…

Inspired by the short story “SIN” in Singaporean writer Ng Yi-Sheng's collection “Lion City” (https://epigrambookshop.sg/products/lion-city), “What’s the Matter, Mr. Monster” (https://www.ministryofmonsters.sg/) is a dialogue-driven game where one role-plays as a civil servant settling complaints of otherworldly creatures settling into Singapore. W…

Social enterprise Wateroam (https://www.wateroam.com) has been working to build a world without prolonged thirst, and today with one of its co-founders Lim Chong Tee we want to push the conversation a little further, by challenging him to share his big ideas about the future of water and water scarcity. After that, we talk about Wateroam’s plans in…

Since 2013, "Both Sides, Now" (https://www.bothsidesnow.sg/) has sought to normalise end-of-life conversations, by creating artistic projects and engaging Singaporeans at public locations such as hospitals, town centres, senior homes, and HDB void decks. Last year, in 2021, the project researched and engaged the Malay-Muslim community, culminating …

With Norvin Chan, founder of the AI therapist chatbot fire.place (https://fire.place/) where folks can vent their feelings, we learn about how users can interact with the chatbot, tech development process, and how his growing-up experience has informed his work. We conclude with a discussion of positioning fire.place in a broader constellation of m…

Today, we have assistant professor Walid Jumblatt Bin Abdullah from the School of Social Sciences in Nanyang Technological University, whose research focuses on religion and politics with a special focus on Singapore and Malaysia. On his Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/walidj.abdullah), he hosts “Teh Tarik With Walid” (TTWW), a series of …

"Beneath the Rug" (https://www.solvenplus.one/btr) is a Singaporean book compilation of 30 stories, written by 30 different individuals in the social service sector. Their honest sharing on the poor/marginalised/disadvantaged in Singapore was surprising, and in this episode with editor Lewin Low we discuss the project’s journey, the writers, and th…

In November last year, the publication titled "Scaled, citizen-led, and public qualitative research: A framework for citizen social science" explored improvements to qualitative research and suggested methods for the conduct of citizen social science. Drawing from two cases - one involving state and civil society organisations and public policy stu…

Co-operative A Good Space, a good friend to this podcast, ran two Listening Living Labs and produced two corresponding Listening Reports to document the experiences and insights of migrant worker communities and low-income communities in Singapore. With representative Nurulhuda Hassan today, we focus on low-income communities, focused on the three …

Co-operative A Good Space, a good friend to this podcast, ran two Listening Living Labs and produced two corresponding Listening Reports to document the experiences and insights of migrant worker communities and low-income communities in Singapore. With representative Vandhana Jeyaram today, we focus on migrant worker communities, focused on the fo…

Co-operative A Good Space, a good friend to this podcast, ran two Listening Living Labs and produced two corresponding Listening Reports to document the experiences and insights of migrant worker communities and low-income communities in Singapore. Even though the issues and insights are not necessarily new, representatives Nurulhuda Hassan and Van…

Member of parliament Louis Ng has been a leading legislative voice on the work and welfare of the Singaporean social worker. We touch on four themes in this episode - pay and compensation, burnout and retention, case management and caseload ratio, as well as community work - before sharing his ongoing public consultation for social workers. This ep…

Two years ago, SG Climate Rally made headlines in September 2019 and created momentum for a range of activities and initiatives. Two years later in 2021, climate change activists in Singapore were frustrated by the lack of systemic or structural progress at COP26, or the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference. The frustration is perhaps comp…