Day: January 28, 2018

I thought this talk was the most meaningful because it was a very local issue. I had previously been part of a service “healthserve” in grade 8 in which we helped injured migrant workers to entertain them by playing games and such which would stop them from staying in their hostels alone. I thought it was a very good service and I enjoyed seeing the migrant workers smile and have a good time. Although I was in this service I didn’t quite realise all of the details to this problem and why it was so bad. I was glad to hear that the MOM let the migrant workers have a special pass. But then realise that it doesn’t really help them because they no longer get paid during this period.

One part of me thought that this issue is a very big issue in singapore and as she said it will be a “slowburn” but non the less that doesn’t mean we cant help the process

Another part of me was talking to a classmate afterward and we were thinking that in order for a society and economy to work properly you need cleaners and garbage man and things. Not everyone can be a CEO or Boss. But non the less this doesnt mean that those who are CEO’s have more rights than those working at a garbage dump.

Deborah Emmanuel was certainly one of my favourite speakers from writers fortnight 2018 because she seemed to be the most real. She didn’t really hold back when it came to her thoughts and she just said what she felt which I thought was very powerful. Most of the time she would talk about her not feeling as though she belongs in a community eg Singapore. She told us poems about this and shared a few of her thoughts on the point. I can certainly relate to this and I am sure many other people can because we all have those times when we feel although we don’t belong in a community so then we must try to find one in which we do fit. Kind of like finding friends. Not everyone can be your friend so you have to choose a few that you think you can relate to and like the most. I really enjoyed her poems and I felt like i listened to her more when she was telling her poems as they were more complex and more interesting that you had to be very attentive in order to understand what she was trying to tell you.

“Everything is going to be okay, its not okay because we choose not to think it is okay”

I personally didn’t even realise that child marriage was such a big issue in the world. Robyn Hayes really did state how it is impacting many many children around the world and I didn’t even know about it. For example she stated the 1/3 children in the developing word are married under the age of 18. She also said the women there are only valued for being mothers and wives. I understood this from the mans perspective but when she said that the woman felt this way too I was shocked. To think that the women themselves only know what it feels like to be a mother or wife is really quite sad as they have no friends and not much of a social life etc. Another big factor that took my attention was that child marriage means that gils cannot have an education which I didn’t understand previously but obviously greatly upscales the issue. I liked how Robyn had a different way of attacking the problem compared to most other people when faced with a global issue. She gave them a voice. I think this is really meaningful as “a picture tells 100 words” so it was very very meaningful to me and I also thought it was a very good way to spread awareness.