The Ironing Board Podcast: Recent Episodes
Haikel Fahim
Where we iron out issues on board...
Issues which are often avoided. Or maybe sometimes they are spoken about but not in the depths it should be. I’m talking about issues on topics such as mental health, disability, abuse, poverty, single parenthood and so many more. These are topics that are still considered by many to be difficult to discuss and sensitive for an open discussion. So every episode, I will endeavour to bring in at least a guest who has gone through or is currently going through these issues, to share with me his/her experiences.
As we return from our mid-season break, we fall into the month of kindness in Singapore. Plenty of things have gone on and went viral on social media recently on some unkind events - no mask lady at MBS, neighbour from hell to frontliners, to name a few. Sometimes all we need is a reminder to be kind to ourselves, and then be kind to others. It was lovely to speak to Jamie Lee, Co-Founder at The Kind Friend who shared how her journey of being kind to herself, through journaling, helped her through mental health issues and in paying kindness and mindfulness to others.
Bullying has made the headlines in Singapore in recent weeks. This episode was recorded even before the viral video of the incident at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. Bullies have been around for a long time and victims of bullying have been forced to live their lives going through humiliation and the detrimental effects of being bullied.
In this episode, Deborah Tan-Pink, a survivor of bullying shared with us what she thought about bullying in schools and her story of how she became public enemy #1 in junior college. Listen also to her shocking story of how a teacher was bullying her in school, when she was just ten years old.
Nurul (not her real name) and her husband are part of the frontline staff that worked through Singapore's circuit breaker to battle COVID-19. This caused what wer friendly relations with her neighbour of six years, to becoming a neighbour from hell. They were verbally abused, sprayed disinfectant on, had racial slurs spewed at them for almost a year, on a daily basis. Their two kids are affected, and the family's effort in seeking mediation and help from authorities have not lead to any kind of resolution. Listen to her story of being tormented in this episode and do help with any advice, feedback you may have by emailing to haikel@theironingboard.sg
International Women's Day is coming up and I spoke to supermomma, Kelly Latimer, on how she views being a woman in Singapore and the progress we've made in addressing women's issues. Kelly and I also spoke about areas she feels we're still lacking in supporting women and her parenting principles on raising good human beings, no matter a boy or a girl. Happy International Women's Day to all female listeners of The Ironing Board Podcast.
Valentine's Day just passed. Love was in the air (ironically, so too was COVID!) but perhaps for what is the de facto day to have sex, the Singapore community are always a little bit awkward and weird when we want to discuss this very intimate topic. So I spoke with Dr. Martha Lee, Clinical Sexologist and Relationship Counsellor, to find out as to why, being more comfortable to talk about sex helps us build a more inclusive society, help our physical and mental health, create better relationships and a lot more!
It wasn't the end of year I was expecting.
What started with a celebration for my wife, Ema, soon turned into phone calls and messages of bad news from her parents who’ve been living in Jakarta. Papa was ill and confirmed to have COVID a few days later. Mama as well. Papa's condition was worsening and not quite getting the medical treatment he needed. We wanted to save him. We wanted them both back home. Few days of extreme anxiety and worry on whether we were going to have them back eventually ended up with him being evacuated by air ambulance from Jakarta, with a ventilator. He was in the ICU. I share my unprecedented year end as The Ironing Board Podcasts end Season 1 and look to come back stronger and better in 2021. Have a great end to 2020 and a brilliant start to 2021.
Rahman Jiaur came to Singapore in 2017 to work as a construction worker. In February 2020, just before COVID-19 hit Singapore with a major wave, he met with an accident at his workplace and is left with a permanent cornea scar. His vision is now affected and is no longer able to work, thus have been living without salary. With a family to support back home in Bangladesh, his situation was worsened by the entire COVID-19 situation in dormitories - he spent 6 months in a dorm room with no income, no money given to purchase catered food.
Donate any amount to help Jiaur with is problems via a crowdfunding campaign put together by Ray of Hope: https://rayofhope.sg/campaign/rahman/
This episode is brought to you by Salesforce. Salesforce is proud to be part of The Ironing Board Podcast which supports its mission to shed light into the areas and topics that are becoming more prevalent in our society today. It expands on content from its own podcast, The Future of Work, Now, and allows us to create deeper conversation, spark inspiration and hopefully drive meaningful change in our community.
Continuing on with the Movember theme, I spoke with Leslie Davis, a positive psychology and well-being practitioner. Leslie shares about positive psychology – what it means and how it helps us. We also talked about why she chose to do a dissertation on mental health, in men. I found it interesting to hear about how ‘loneliness’ could be the cause of deterioration of mental well-being in males. Leslie also talked about how we can be more inclusive as a society and how we can be more aware of these emotions that are being suppressed in men.
This episode is brought to you by Salesforce. Salesforce is proud to be part of The Ironing Board Podcast which supports its mission to shed light into the areas and topics that are becoming more prevalent in our society today. It expands on content from its own podcast, The Future of Work, Now, and allows us to create deeper conversation, spark inspiration and hopefully drive meaningful change in our community.
Daanish was sexually abused twice when he was 16. He dropped out of school and began a life filled with drugs, alcohol, partying. Going through depression, he tried taking his life numerous times but failed. He decided to seek help by checking himself into rehabilitation but was instead imprisoned. His time in rehab was riddled with being treated like a criminal and after being released, he relapsed almost immediately. It was only when he sought professional help in treating his depression that he sobered up and started to once again build a life for himself.
It's been great to see that gender discrimination in a professional setting getting the attention it deserves. More can be done and we're on our way there. We just all need to keep talking about it. So I decided to bring on Nina Devouge and Cheryl Guzman Ng on this episode to give their perspectives on this topic. Nina is a corporate mom who works in the talent sphere. While Cheryl was a victim of discrimination herself, she is also the co-founder of Crazycat (https://www.hellocrazycat.com/), a movement that hopes to inspire and support the everyday women. This discussion dispersed into so many areas from what it was like historically to what we do at home, how we nurture our kids and it was so interesting! Take a listen and take a lesson from this episode.
Imagine making a 'mistake' and then having to live and continuously be judged for it - not just by society, but friends, colleagues and family. To top it all off, an innocent child is in the mix. Why can't we be more sympathetic towards the plight of single parents?! I brought Anna (not her real name) to speak on this episode how she was immediately judged at work, thinking about how to appease her extended family, because she got pregnant out of wedlock and decided to keep and raise the child. I want to put it out there that single mothers deserve every bit of support from employers, the government, and the society. Be more human.
Single mothers, visit https://daughtersoftomorrow.org/, if you're looking to seek professional assistance.
The term “depressed” gets thrown around a lot in casual conversation. That's great because we want people talking about it. But do people really try to empathise with someone going through depression? What does it mean to have gone through it and what should you say or not say, to someone who may tell you that they're feeling depressed? I spoke with Sham Rahman, who went through depression from his early teenage years through his time in National Service. He attempted suicide, and thankfully survived to tell us some of his stories. Alongside Sham, I had Asher Low, Executive Director of Limitless - a non-profit organisation helping youths through mental health issues, among others. Some great lessons came out of listening to what they had to say.
Autism – we all probably know someone with it. Yet, have we ever tried to understand it a little better? How does someone living with autism perceive the daily things we do in life? What do their family members go through? I spoke with Kartina Rosli, mother of 7-year-old Irfan, who was diagnosed with autism when he was three. I also had Kwek Xianyu, a Board Certified Behaviour Analyst, who gave some insights as to what autism is all about.
Before we get into the first episode of TIBP, I wanted to give you a quick background as to who I am and why I've decided to put together this podcast. Have a listen!