Filming Day 1 - Insights from the Inside

With HOME approving our proposal, the team scheduled our first interview session on Wednesday, 28 Feb, to kickstart the filming process. Armed with our video equipment, four of our team mates headed down to HOME's Guillemard office to interview two representatives from HOME, Stephanie and Jevon, who work closely with domestic workers and male migrant workers respectively. Here's what they had to say about their experience on working with with migrant workers:

On challenges that the workers' face -

"Migrant workers face multiple challenges in Singapore. At our help desk, we regularly see migrant workers that face various forms of wage theft – from non-payment of salary to under payment of salary. At the Domestic Worker’s Help Desk excessive work hours is the top complaint. Verbal abuse, illegal deployment – meaning being asked to work in two houses or in family businesses. Verbal abuse is very common as well, among domestic workers. There are also issues like restriction on communication, constant surveillance and of course we also see cases of physical and sexual abuse and harassment. " - Stephanie

On how they work together with migrant workers to resolve challenges -

"What I do is I hear them out, I listen to the problems they’re facing, I teach them how to evidence gather and to inform them about their rights, and provide them any assistance that they require. It may be writing to the ministry, sending them to the police to make reports, teaching them how to make salary claims, etc..... I work on strengthening the community that migrant workers have by empowering them – building their capacity, so that they are able to understand the law and their rights better." - Jevon

The Team's Experience:

While we managed to conduct these interviews successfully, getting these insights were not without challenges. Here's what our team mates had to say about their experience:

"Standing in front of a camera and sharing about what you are passionate about in front of a bunch of strangers isn't an easy task. But we did what we could to make our interviewees comfortable and reassured them that what we needed weren't perfect sound bites. The stories we heard were sad but it also inspired us to help with their cause." - Amelia

" On our way to the shoot we stopped at a construction site to take some B-roll footage. The workers that we met were more than willing to help us out even without knowing what we were filming for. And we realised, through our extremely minimal interaction how nice these workers were." -- Zirong