Resident Volunteers Step Up to Help with Daily Tasks at Dormitories

1. With foreign workers now staying in the dormitories during the circuit breaker period, additional manpower is required to support the daily running at the dormitories. This includes expanded logistical demands for the timely distribution of meals and other supplies, and increased frequency of cleanliness routines due to higher usage of facilities and larger volumes of trash generated.
2. To cope with the additional manpower needs, the Forward Assurance and Support Teams, or FAST deployed by the Inter-agency Taskforce to the dormitories have been working with the operators to tap on resident volunteers to help with selected tasks. These foreign worker residents are stepping up as volunteers to take ownership of the cleanliness, hygiene at the dormitory and take care of their residence.
   
   Some examples are:
   • Sungei Tengah (“STL”) Lodge Dormitory 
   o As part of its daily operations, STL maintains a team of 60 professional cleaners to upkeep the hygiene and cleanliness of the premises. With the increase in demand for cleaning and disinfection of the common areas and washroom facilities and the clearing of trash, 120 residents have stepped up as volunteers to contribute to these efforts.
   o With over 24,000 foreign workers spread over 10 13-storey residential blocks, the distribution of meals is a key challenge. Resident volunteers facilitate this by distributing the meals to the different levels of the various blocks to ensure dormitory residents receive their meals on time.
   
   • S11 @Punggol (“S11”) Dormitory 
   o With about 13,000 foreign workers in S11, over 140 resident volunteers have stepped up to assist in the distribution of meals across 12 residential blocks. This helped to speed up the process of ensuring that all residents get their meals without delay
   
    
3. With resident volunteers stepping up to help with manpower needs, FAST and dormitory operators can then focus their efforts on other key areas such as ensuring the proper management of essential needs and compliance of safe distancing measures that contribute to the well-being and health of the residents.
4. The Inter-Agency Taskforce will aim to replicate this initiative at the other dormitories where feasible.