Making Poverty History One By One — An Interview With Michael Switow, Founder of ONE (SINGAPORE)
Image: Michael Switow, Founder of ONE (SINGAPORE) with Ernany Jasmin, Founder and Managing Director of WOLF + WALD
December 2021 began on an uplifting note as we launched a fundraiser campaign for ONE (SINGAPORE)’s ONE Emergency Fund, helping to provide urgent assistance to individuals and families in need of basic necessities. These include infant formula, diapers and hostel fees for the homeless.
We also had the privilege of meeting Michael Switow, founder of ONE (SINGAPORE), and having a meaningful discussion about the organisation’s mission — make poverty history.
WW: After living in Singapore for five years, you founded ONE (SINGAPORE). Was there something in particular (an experience, perhaps?) that sparked this initiative?
Time can fly so quickly. When I realised I had already been in Singapore for five years, I decided it was time to do more to contribute back to the community. About the same time, I recall watching a global concert called Live 8. I was outdoors at Chijmes, when Will Smith got onto the stage in Philadelphia. He snapped his finger, then snapped them again, to highlight the message that every three seconds a child dies from extreme poverty. Millions of people in the audience there, and hundreds of millions across the globe, snapped their fingers in unison. It was a very powerful moment, and one which inspired us to start ONE (SINGAPORE) here.
(Today, the poverty mortality statistic is once every six seconds; it’s an improvement, but clearly there’s still a long way to go.)
WW: Your work in campaigning against poverty is extensive & you’ve leveraged your gift in communications to propel these efforts - please tell us more about a campaign or publication in which you’re particularly proud of.
I definitely have to highlight the ONE Emergency Fund.
The ONE Emergency Fund provides financial and in-kind support to individuals and families who need assistance, but cannot find it elsewhere, or cannot obtain it in time. It’s a stopgap, non-recurring programme. Most of the assistance provided is relatively small in scope.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the ONE Emergency Fund has helped more than 1000 families with essential items such as groceries, milk formula, diapers, spectacles and assistance with utility, medical and HDB bills.
Demand for assistance has surged. A year ago, ONE (SINGAPORE) received about 30 applications a month; now we receive more than 150 requests. While the number of applicant families has jumped, their circumstances often seem more dire as well. Some families have trouble paying the rent. Others can't afford diapers or milk formula. Almost all need fresh groceries.
Here are a few examples of recent assistance:
· Bought and installed an instant water heater for a single mom of 6 children, who is juggling with parenting eldest daughter, who is pregnant, and youngest child with special needs.
· Dentures for a woman who was having trouble eating after breaking her front teeth. She had also become extremely self-conscious. The family could not afford a dentist, and her husband’s plans to change careers were derailed by the pandemic.
· A father of six young children, whose wife is pregnant with their seventh, works in the food delivery trade. His old PAB (power-assisted bicycle) broke down, though, and he was unable to afford the repairs, and with a broken bike, he could not work either. ONE (SINGAPORE) bought him a new e-bike so he could work again.
· Financial assistance to a homeless man, who had been placed on unpaid leave from his job as a dishwasher at Sentosa due to COVID-19 restrictions.
· Hostel fees for a family of three facing homelessness. The mother of the family works in F&B and was placed on unpaid leave due to COVID-19. Singapore’s homeless shelters were full, leading their social worker to approach ONE (SINGAPORE) for assistance.
These are just a few examples of the types of assistance and families that approach the ONE Emergency Fund every day for help. We would not be able to assist them, though, without the generous support of the public and corporate partners like WOLF + WALD.
Image: Fundraiser poster for SG Giving Week
WW: At WOLF + WALD, we are constantly looking for global citizens such as yourself to inspire change. It might be slightly unusual to see an American dedicating his life towards “making poverty history” in Singapore but what has this taught you about what it means to be a global citizen?
Think Global. Act Local. I didn’t invent this saying, but it’s good advice. We live in an interconnected world. Some people say this is more evident than ever, since the onset of the pandemic. But you can also see this in climate change and global poverty, which are interlinked, not to mention pop culture. The right policies - at the international and national levels - can positively impact the lives of everyone on this planet. At the same time, each and every one of us can make a difference in our communities. ONE by ONE . . . by ONE!
WW: You’ve been active in the social activism scene for the past 16 years. Have you noticed any mindset change towards poverty within Singapore & Asia over the last decade?
There is a greater awareness of poverty in Singapore, now, though many people still don’t realise the extent of the problem. Before the onset of the pandemic, researchers estimated that 10-12 percent of Singaporeans live in poverty, unable to make ends meet. While we don’t have official figures, from the cases that we see, it seems clear that the problem has worsened over the past two years.
WW: In 2013, you wrote a research paper, “Post 2015 — What Comes After The Millennium Development Goals”, in which you said that we must not “lose sight of the reality that we can and must do better”. 8 years on, how much more critical is this “reality”?
In Singapore, we are lucky. Despite being a small country, vaccines are widely available. More than 80 percent of residents are fully vaccinated and many have received booster shots as well. But we need only travel a short distance to find a very different reality.
“Covid-19 is a wake-up call – and we are oversleeping,” US Secretary-General Antonio Guterres exclaimed earlier this year, as he called for a new social contract.
Three-quarters of all COVID-19 vaccine doses have gone to only 10 countries, which low-income countries have received less than 1 percent of all shots administered.
COVID-19 is an Inequality Virus. The disparities are all around us: from unequal access to the vaccine to the fact that frontline workers - who face the greatest health risks - are predominantly women of colour as well as individuals from communities that face discrimination based on their work and descent. The education of an entire generation has been jeopardised. Students from affluent communities with good internet connection have fared better than others, while tens of millions of girls are in danger of never returning to school. The world’s richest billionaires have seen their wealth double over the past year, while low-paid and informal-economy workers have seen their income shrink or dwindle to zero.1
“The pandemic is a portal,” writes the Booker Prize-winning novelist, essayist and political activist Arundhati Roy. “We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
In the first years after the Sustainable Development Goals were adapted in 2015, the world initially made progress in the fight against inequalities, poverty and climate change. But over the last two years, among other issues, hunger has risen, both at home and abroad.
We most certainly can and must do better.
1 For more about Vaccine Inequality, see “Sustainable Equality for All: Emerging from COVID-19,” Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) Position Paper, September 2021. This paragraph is adapted from the introduction. I was an author and editor of this paper.
WW: Please share resources which our readers can visit to donate and/or volunteer with ONE (SINGAPORE).
The ONE Emergency Fund is now running dangerously low on funds. We need your help to continue to reduce inequalities and foster well-being for vulnerable individuals and families in Singapore.
Please take action today and support the ONE Emergency Fund: www.giving.sg/onesingapore/one-emergency-fund-2022
Every dollar counts.
We also welcome volunteers! Volunteers are needed to assist with food and in-kind deliveries, as well as with fundraising and the administration of ONE (SINGAPORE) campaigns. For more information about volunteering, please go to onesingapore.org/take-action/volunteers or https://www.giving.sg/manage-volunteers?orgId=3111575
If this story has moved you in particular, we invite you to extend your generosity towards ONE (SINGAPORE) whether as a volunteer, a donor or even both! May the spirit of giving remain with us outside of Christmas time too!
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/OneSingapore/
Website: http://onesingapore.org/
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