Celebrating AWARE’s Herstory

Celebrating AWARE’s History:
35th Birthday

AWAREFest

To celebrate the 35th anniversary of AWARE’s founding in 1985, a total of 605 participants attended a five-day virtual festival, AWAREFest, from 25 November to 29 November 2020. The festival featured online panels, workshops and interactive discussions centred on the fight for gender equality in Singapore. Its inaugural theme was “Love + Rage”, which channelled both the rich history of the local women’s movement, and the singular mood of this present time.

Programme highlights included:

  • The Great Debate: Two teams (featuring activists and thinkers Kokila Annamalai, Faeza Sirajudin, Remy Choo, Tim Min Jie, Becca D’Bus and Rosemarie Somaiah) debated the motion “Is love or rage a better fuel for justice?”
  • Women in Politics: The Personal is Political: Four women (He Ting Ru, Carrie Tan, Liyana Dhamirah and Hazel Poa) who ran for office in GE2020 spoke about their diverse experiences.
  • Intersectionality Quiz Night: Injustice to the Power of Six: This fun, fast-paced trivia challenge hosted by popular comedian and influencer Preetipls covered the intersection of gender and issues such as income inequality, sexual orientation and disability.
  • #MeToo in Asia: One Continent, Many Movements: An international panel of activists (Wipaphan Wongsawang, Karen Lai, Anindya Restuviani and Danielle Pereira) shared insights from the fight against sexual violence around the region.
(L-R) AWAREFest events included the panels #MeToo in Asia and Women in Politics: The Personal is Political, and a fun Intersectionality Quiz Night
We built into AWAREFest a few moments to reflect back on the highs of AWARE’s 35-year journey. One such moment was a video called “The Herstory of AWARE”, which we played during our AWAREHouse Party on Saturday, 28 November. The video featured five individuals whose lives had been touched, directly or indirectly, by the policy changes brought about by AWARE’s advocacy over the years.

The AWAREHouse Party also featured a video montage of birthday wishes from a number of important supporters, including Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, Ambassador-at-Large Dr Tommy Koh, Minister for Law and for Home Affairs K. Shanmugam, Banyan Tree Hospitality Group co-founders Claire Chiang and Ho Kwon Ping, social scientist Noeleen Heyzer and sexual assault survivor Monica Baey.

One more way to look back on AWARE’s achievements came in the form of “Becoming AWARE: 35 years of women’s activism”, an article-cum-data visualisation by Singaporean editorial studio Kontinentalist. The piece charts our advocacy efforts, public campaigns, community training, support services and much more.

All in all, AWAREFest was an innovative way to bring together our community in a year characterised by isolation. “It was very well-organised!” raved one attendee. “Each session has been very thought-provoking and I don’t know where else I would be able to experience this.” Another called AWAREFest “a great overview of the feminist movement in Singapore” and “a great way to ease in people who are interested in getting involved in the movement”.

Saga: a podcast about the AWARE Saga

Another major project of 2020 honoured a landmark point in AWARE’s history. On 9 December 2020, we launched Saga, a limited-series narrative podcast about the 2009 takeover known as the AWARE Saga. Saga was the first podcast produced by AWARE, and the first-ever long-form narrative podcast produced in Singapore. It was hosted by acclaimed former journalist Bharati Jagdish and written and produced by Jasmine Ng and Kelly Leow, with an original score by the band .gif. All 12 episodes, as well as bonus episodes and special features, were made available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and a special microsite.

Saga was produced over the course of two years in 2019 and 2020. A total of 50 individuals were interviewed, including former AWARE presidents Constance Singam, Kanwaljit Soin, Dana Lam and Tan Joo Hymn, celebrities Pam Oei and Irene Ang, and thought-leaders such as Tommy Koh, Teo You Yenn, Gillian Koh, Imran Taib, Siew Kum Hong and Tong Yee.

Driven by strong word-of-mouth, Saga was an immediate success, breaking into the top 15 of the Apple Podcasts Singapore chart and the top 35 of the Spotify Singapore chart just four weeks after its launch (eventually peaking within the top 20 for Spotify). For weeks, it ranked within the top 5 podcasts of its category (Society & Culture) across all platforms. With more than 80 five-star ratings, and more than 60,000 streams and downloads as of February 2021, Saga outperformed popular local podcasts and international hits alike in Singapore.

Accompanied by positive media coverage (e.g. from The Straits Times and The New Paper), a wave of rave reviews for Saga poured in. Here is a sample.