A tribute to the 'little people' who built Singapore

EVERY time artist May Oon came across negative news about foreign workers - domestic workers who are abused or labourers living in sub-standard housing - it moved her but she felt helpless to do anything about it.

"Singaporeans complain a lot about foreign workers invading their space, but we forget that the majority of us came from lowly-paid workers who broke their backs to build Singapore," she points out.

Instead of being gracious to the people doing the work we don't want to do, we stigmatise foreign labourers. "Could we not be more compassionate to the new generation of migrant workers who are here to help improve our way of living?" she asks.