The Happy Happy English program that Goducate has been running in dormitories for foreign workers in Singapore has been running for 2 years already. It’s a program to teach the workers functional English. It’s also intended to extend a hand of friendship to these people whose lives here consist largely of extremely long hours of work. Very often the students are just arriving back from work when our classes, held on Saturday nights, are ending at 10 pm.
The program has been running in three dormitories since last year, and in a fourth starting this year. Last week, students in the first three dormitories who had attended at least 60% of the classes this year received their certificates of attendance. This end-of-year event was an informal one held in the various dormitories, with fun and games, chat, and food.
The volunteers have been privileged to be accepted as friends with whom the workers are willing to share their ups and down. Sadly, they have more downs than ups, and one of the worst situations they face is sudden termination of their work projects, and hence their jobs, within months of their arrival, long before they have earned enough to pay for the fees they paid their agents to get a job here.
Goducate hopes that the Happy Happy English program will at least give these workers the idea that there are people here who are prepared to be their friends, and we are thankful that modern technology enables us to keep in touch with them even after they return home.
