Imagine not being able to talk to the people you love
Covid-19 has been an isolating and anxious time for migrant workers in Singapore. Speaking with their families is one of their main comforts. Sadly, migrant workers in Singapore face significant challenges in calling their loved ones for support.
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Why aren’t they able to call home now?
Many of our migrant workers’ families do not have stable internet access. To contact their families, workers rely on expensive international calling cards, which can cost $30-40 a month, or up to 10% of their take-home pay. The high cost of calls results in workers limiting the amount of time they speak to their families for.
COVID restrictions mean many cannot return to work or leave their dorms. Salary cuts make these cards too expensive, while movement restrictions make purchasing physical cards impossible.
That call is sometimes all they need to keep going another day
Migrant workers are here in Singapore to support their families. Call Home enables them to call their families back home easily and virtually for free. Often, that one call is all they need to keep going for another day.
Call Home lets them make 3G to landline calls for free, with your help.
Over 90% of the proceeds will go directly to the worker's talktime, making it free for workers. We have also negotiated a discounted rate so that donating to Call Home is 40-55% cheaper than standard calling rates, making your donation stretch even further.
Give migrant workers the comfort of hearing a loved one’s voice
Just $10 a month gives 1 worker 200 minutes of high-quality talk-time with their parents, spouse, and children.
Here’s what they have to say
“Call Home helped me a lot to connect with my family. Even though my family doesn’t use internet, we can talk very easily using the Call Home app; we can continue talking for more than half an hour. It’s really great for us.”
কল হোম আমাকে পরিবারের সাথে যোগাযোগ করতে অনেক সহায়তা করেছে। যদিও আমার পরিবার ইন্টারনেট ব্যবহার করে না, আমরা অ্যাপ্লিকেশনটি ব্যবহার করে খুব সহজেই কথা বলতে পারি এবং আমরা আধ ঘন্টারও বেশি সময় ধরে কথা বলতে পারি can এটি আমাদের জন্য সত্যই দুর্দান্ত
- Abdul, from Bangladesh. 13 years in Singapore
“Yes I do like it ..I always call my ma mother /abba father and my wife on direct calls..happy..coz we have not much money to buy main balance to call.. it’s so helpful for us to call them. I m really so happy.”
হ্যাঁ আমি পছন্দ করি .. আমি সর্বদা আমার মাকে / আব্বাকে আব্বু ডাকি my আমি সত্যিই খুব খুশি।
- Alam, from Bangladesh. 19 years in Singapore
"This app is very useful for us. With this app we can talk to our family for free. মা তোমাকে দেখতে খুপ ইচ্ছা করছে. I love you Ma."
এই অ্যাপটি আমাদের জন্য খুব দরকারী। এই অ্যাপ্লিকেশনটি দিয়ে আমরা আমাদের পরিবারের সাথে বিনামূল্যে কথা বলতে পারি।
- Robiul, from Bangladesh. 6 years in Singapore.
As featured on
Better.SG wins Mobile - Telecommunications Award at SBR TEA
Its Call Home app helps connect migrant workers with their families.
Recognising the contribution of a company’s innovative systems in the field of mobile telecommunications, Singapore Business Review’s judges have awarded the Mobile Award for Telecommunications to Better.SG. This was for their Call Home app, a cost-effective 3G solution that allows migrant workers to call their families’ landline phones in their home country.
- Singapore Business Review, 27 Apr 2021
App helps connect foreign workers with their families
Local team using their Internet call service to connect workers to loved ones.
They joined a hackathon earlier this year and focused on making an app to connect the elderly isolated during the pandemic.
But the team realised that the bigger need was connecting migrant workers here to their loved ones back home. So they switched focus for their Internet call service, called Call Home, to the workers instead.
- The Newpaper, 5 Oct 2020
These four friends have a dream: To help migrant workers call home for free
Connecting with family back home is expensive for migrant workers, so four young Singaporeans build an app to let them call home free of charge
It’s hard to imagine life without our mobile phones. It’s often the first thing we look at when we wake up to check on the news or to see if we’ve had any missed calls or messages.
Our phones became even more critical when Covid-19 struck and Singapore went into the circuit breaker. They provided us with the virtual connections we needed to get through the tough times then.
- The Pride, 3 Dec 2020
Call Home Christmas Campaign Bridges Connectivity Gap For Migrant Workers
Call Home is all about connectivity — for good! Support their Christmas campaign 2020 so migrant workers can call their loved ones back home during this holiday season.
Started by 4 strangers who met through better.sg, a local organization that helps volunteer groups like ourselves to build tech products for social good, Call Home is on mission to improve connectivity for the migrant workers population in Singapore.
- Changemakr.asia, 17 Dec 2020
Give the comfort of hearing a loved one’s voice
Just $10 gives 1 migrant worker 200 minutes per month of high-quality talk-time with their parents, spouse and children.
Thank you to our supporters
Call Home works with the following migrant worker groups in Singapore to help migrant workers get access to Call Home: CMSC, TWC2 and HOME. We are very grateful for Majurity Trust for seed funding, Oscar@SG Fund from Temasek Trust, and Facebook for grant matching, and better.sg, Sweet Jam Sites, and Give.asia for additional support.
If you like to sponsor this project as a corporate sponsor, please get in touch with us at meera@better.sg or via the Contact page.