For the month of July, AVPN had an intimate gathering with members and community friends at Jack Sim’s house to learn more about the work being done by the BoP Hub. The main project highlighted was on the issue of hidden hunger amongst foreign migrant workers in Singapore.

A recent research conducted by NUS CARE exposed the substandard quality of catered food being served to foreign migrant workers which enticed the BoP Hub to investigate this issue further. BoP HUB reached out to a food nutrition specialist to analyse the common meal that a foreign construction worker eats on a daily basis and found out that most workers are in fact suffering from hidden hunger, a public health problem that is often associated with poor developing countries. Hidden hunger is defined as an individual that suffers from malnutrition without feeling any hunger.

In order to combat the hidden hunger issue among foreign migrant workers in Singapore, BoP HUB is launching a joint venture social enterprise with DSM, a Dutch-based multinational life sciences and materials sciences company. The main mission of the social enterprise will be to improve the health and livelihood of those suffering from hidden hunger. This social enterprise will focus on providing fortified rice as a nutritious alternative to the regular rice. Rice fortification has been the go-to solution by the likes of United Nations World Food Programme, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to combat hidden hunger. The goal is to turn the meals that the workers are eating from “empty carbs to healthy carbs”.

To find out more information or ways to contribute, please contactinfo@bophub.org