Events

This event is organised under the auspices of the Migrating out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium, the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, and *SCAPE as a Programme Partner.

PANEL SYNOPSIS

By 2030, there will only be 2.1 working-age citizens supporting each citizen aged 65 and above—in comparison to 4.8 in 2015. Can Singaporean households continue to depend on our current model of care?

Our infrastructures of care are augmented by over 230,000 migrant domestic workers who make breakfasts for children and take elderly mothers to weekly medical appointments in Singapore. Recognised by Senior Minister of State (Health) Dr. Amy Khor as a “corps” of “eldercarers” who are integral to aged care, the role of migrant domestic workers in easing Singaporeans’ care responsibilities is likely to become increasingly vital in the years to come.

In discussions about migrant domestic workers, the role played by employment agents is often under-examined. Employment agents are the connective tissue which links Singaporean employers to migrant domestic workers. They are often painted as extractive brokers of labour, but in reality, employment agents play a crucial role in selecting, training, placing, and matching migrant domestic workers to households in need of domestic help.

From afar, the migration industry is a complicated and sprawling transnational business moving labour and capital across vast distances; draw closer, and it is filled with intimate and everyday questions, such as: who can I trust to take care of the most vulnerable in my home? What happens when the migrant carer is, herself, profoundly vulnerable?

Questions of care—and the costs of such care—are questions which are now critical to ask. What is our current model of care? What alternatives are available? What are the costs embedded in training and specialization for domestic workers involved in care work? What difficulties are faced by domestic workers, agents, and employers?

This panel and exhibition set out, ultimately, to ask: how do migrant domestic workers and employment agents factor into Singapore’s long-term care provision for families?

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Ms K. Jayaprema, President of the Association of Employment Agencies (Singapore)

SPEAKERS

Mr Kevin Teo, Co-founder of Anisya
Ms Yorelle Kalika, Founder and CEO of Active Global Specialised Caregivers
Mr Mark Chin, Director, Sales & Marketing of Homekeeper
Ms Kellynn Wee, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

Moderator: Prof Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Asia Research Institute, and Department of Geography, National University of Singapore

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

K. Jayaprema has been the President of the Association of Employment Agencies (Singapore) since 2011. She has more than 24 years of experience as an employment agent. During her tenure as President, she has sought to enhance the conditions of recruitment of foreign domestic workers for Singapore in order to protect workers’ emotional and economic welfare and ensure that Singapore employers can hire qualified workers who effectively serve employers’ needs.

Kevin Teo is the Co-Founder of Anisya, an online open domestic worker job exchange. He is also the Managing Director of the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network’s (AVPN) Knowledge Centre.  Kevin spent the past 10 years in the social impact sector with stints at Volans, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the World Economic Forum. Prior to that, he spent 8 years in the software startup sector in California and Texas. Kevin is also a Trustee of the Southeast Asian Service Leadership Network (SEALNet).

Yorelle Kalika is the founder and CEO of Active Global Specialised Caregivers, which was established in 2012 to meet the growing need for holistic, professional and affordable home-based patient care in Asia. Filling the gap between hospitals, day care centres and nursing homes, Active Global’s efforts have made quality home-based care accessible to low and middle-income families. Its Singapore team consists of more than 360 trained nurses and nursing aides, who provide full-time live-in care.

Mark Chin is the Director of Sales and Marketing for Homekeeper. He has been in the employment agency industry since April 2000. He has travelled to Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and India to recruit workers and understand their local cultures. Homekeeper is one of the largest employment agencies in Singapore today; with an emphasis on elderly care, it has served tens of thousands of families since its beginnings in 2009.

Kellynn Wee is part of the Migrating out of Poverty research team at the Asia Research Institute. Together with her colleagues, she has spent the past year researching Singapore’s migration industry, mapping the ways that employment agents recruit, select, and match migrant domestic workers to employers. She updates the Migrating out of Poverty blog at http://arimoop.wordpress.com with research findings, interviews, and excerpts from fieldwork.

EXHIBITION

The exhibition features the stories of five agents, all of whom work very differently to recruit and place migrant domestic workers in Singapore. Come find out the stories of the agents which run businesses that we’ve christened as: the ‘big boy’ agency, the boutique agency, the cultural broker, the expert caregivers, and the ethical agency.

Filmed and photographed by Grace Baey

PROGRAMME

REGISTRATION

Admission is free, and seats are available on a first come, first served basis. We would greatly appreciate if you click on the “Register” button above to RSVP.

ARI ASIA TRENDS 2016 SERIES

ASIA TRENDS is an ARI flagship public outreach event. This annual series of public lectures showcase the work of ARI’s research clusters, highlights the relevance of ARI’s research to Singapore, and relates Singapore to the rest of Asia from the perspective of significant trends in the region. It is an opportunity for ARI to connect with the larger Singapore community through sharing and interacting with various public sectors (citizenry, government), civil society organizations, businesses, universities and colleges, by presenting cutting edge research on major trends in Asia. Some trends examined in the past include “En Route to the Departure Hall: How Migrants Navigate Recruitment Processes,” “Finding Singapore,” “Perspectives on Marital Dissolution: Divorce Biographies in Singapore,” “Creating Centralities” and “What is Sinophone World Literature?: China, Southeast Asia, and the Global 60s”. Each ARI research cluster hosts an evening talk, during which usually an overseas speaker, who is a prominent researcher or scholar, is invited to examine an emergent trend in that research field; a Singapore-based researcher then provides comments on local development with regard to the trend in question. Past seminars have witnessed interesting interaction between speakers and commentators and lively audience participation in the discussions.