The Best of You presents a collaboration with Banglar Kantha to show our support for the Bangladeshi migrant workers community.
The movement has always believed in raising the voices of marginalised communities through our platform - this includes the migrant workers community. It is important to create opportunities for meaningful interactions and find more supporting ways where the migrant workers community could be a part of the greater community they are in.
This is especially critical in current times, where many migrant workers are currently experiencing a future filled with unpredictability and loneliness in a foreign land. As the anxiety over halted work and with their families miles away mount, where will they be able to find a source of comfort in such times?
Learn from Banglar Kantha as they offer these Bangladeshi migrant workers a source of comfort through poetry-writing and the sharing of their culture.
Loneliness is often a constant companion that the migrant workers working here in Singapore have to endure, especially after a day’s work.
Banglar Kantha, a monthly Bengali newspaper published in Singapore, covers up-to-date information from home and Singapore, while providing an outlet for these migrant workers to express their voices and keep in touch with the happenings back home.
For Mr. AKM Mohsin, founder of Banglar Kantha and Dibashram, a physical space at 70A Desker Road, these are ways to bring the migrant community together and make home feel a little less far away.
Dibashram also occasionally serves as a place of respite for displaced migrant workers to seek advice or shelter temporarily.
Showing your support for the migrant worker community can be the first step in reaching out to those living and working in Singapore. Banglar Kantha aims to extend a cultural footing to the migrant workers, and bring this marginalized community into the mainstream conversation through music, drama and poetry.
You can start by simply sharing their literary works with your friends and family, and showing your appreciation for their culture.
You can also take a step further and donate to Banglar Kantha. With your help, you could help to continue the circulation of the Banglar Kantha newspaper that serves an approximate 50,000 Bangladeshis low-wage migrant workers in Singapore monthly.
