SGSecure: A Movement for All Communities

Since its launch in 2016, the SGSecure movement has empowered Singaporeans to safeguard their communities and raised the level of emergency preparedness among individuals and organisations. 

On 7 April 2018, the movement was extended to the deaf and hard-of-hearing community for the first time, at a workshop at the Singapore Association for the Deaf (SADeaf).

Over 60 SADeaf members attended the session, which was co-organised by the Geylang Neighbourhood Police Centre. “The deaf and those who are hard-of-hearing are just as vulnerable as other people in times of crisis,” said Ms Sylvia Teng, 47, Executive Director for SADeaf. “This workshop helped to convey many important counter-terrorism messages, which will better prepare them for an emergency.”

During the workshop, Singapore Police Force (SPF) officers from the Geylang Neighbourhood Police Centre shared the SGSecure’s “Run, Hide, Tell” and “Press, Tie, Tell” advisories and provided guidelines about spotting suspicious objects and behaviour. SADeaf members were also introduced to the SGSecure mobile app and shown how to make Police reports via SMS. 

“This has been a very good learning experience for me,” said SADeaf member Ms Regina Teo, a 54-year-old accountant. She shared how she’d once been trapped in a lift with her husband (who is also hard-of-hearing) and son. “We were in the lift one morning when it suddenly stopped,” recalled Regina. “Thankfully, our son was with us. He made a phone-call and someone came to our rescue. But in the future, if anything similar happens, I’ll be sure to use the ‘70999’ emergency SMS number.”

To ensure that SGSecure messages could be more easily understood by participants, the organisers used visual materials, video captions and interpreters. During the question-and-answer sessions, two interpreters were deployed; one off-stage to convey questions, the other on-stage to sign the answer to workshop participants.

The session gave SADeaf member Ms Jenny Yeo a better understanding of how she and her family can be prepared for emergencies. “Technology is always improving and this helps our community understand what’s going on around us,” said the 57-year-old pharmacy assistant. “But there’s another group of hard-of-hearing people that we tend to look out for; those who aren’t proficient in English. So having this workshop was good for all of us, because we can all understand sign language.”

Asked if they’ll be downloading the SGSecure mobile app, both Regina and Jenny replied that they would be doing so as soon as they got home. “I’m going to recommend the app to my son and parents too,” said Regina. “My parents are old, so it might be a bit more difficult for them to understand, but I’m willing to teach them.”