Good letter in Today. Thanks to Chinky and Eslina for sending me the link.
6 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Helen Gamp's letter should have been forwarded to the PM's office as well as all the Town Coucils in Singapore. It is certainly true that residents who complain aggressively and/or repeatedly, seem to be given more "rights" than others simply because of their aggression or persistence.
This seems to promote Singapore as being founded upon aggression, self-centredness and intolerance instead.
Others who are caregivers, on the other hand, are often treated as or labeled "mad animal lovers". How often do we have to correct the TC officers we deal with to address us as "Resident Volunteers" and not "cat lovers", a term they had used liberally!
It is frustrating, especially when we deal with complaints as trivial as "there are cats in the void deck, or there are cats coming out of the drain"! These people actually want NOT to ever see a cat wherever they go!!!
Hopefully the terms "care givers" and "community cats" become terms of reference by town councils. I received an email from my SPO (Senior Property Officer) addressing me as "cat welfare volunteer". I called him up to correct him that I am "just a resident" who volunteers to manage the cats in the community. We are not some crazy cat lovers who want MORE cats. In fact we would prefer LESS cats because of the sufferings caused by intolerance and also from abuse, poisoning (intentional and unintentional) and being run over by cars, etc, but we DO NOT agree to killing in managing problems but advocate the humane method of sterilisation.
we need more caregivers like you Anonymous to speak up. If the words are used often enough, then TC officers will become familiar with them - and will hopefully use them too.
Anonymous of 6.13pm - you are absolutely right. People who like cats do not want more cats in the communities - they want LESS cats. LESS means cat care-givers have less cats to care for and more money to spend on themselves.
If TCs understand that - they will realise that cat care-givers want the same things as TCs. There is a large group of available and dedicated volunteers who would manage the cat colonies, sterilise the community cats and take care of residents' complaints. Why won't TCs work with the cat care-givers ?
Cat care-givers are residents just as the people who complain about cats - equal rights shd be given to both parties.
In fact I was told that the foreign worker who was instructed to trap the cat "illegally" to be relocated, complaint about "wasting" hours to trap just one cat! From this, if only the town council can "see" how much time dedicated care-givers spend to catch EVERY cat in the estate so that they can achieve a drop in the numbers or at least to match the number of "thrown down" cats and kittens from irresponsible owners!, they will see that these are the REAL people who deserve PBM awards, rather than some RC people who only know how to use their "oral traps" to un-kart their MP!
6 comments:
Helen Gamp's letter should have been forwarded to the PM's office as well as all the Town Coucils in Singapore. It is certainly true that residents who complain aggressively and/or repeatedly, seem to be given more "rights" than others simply because of their aggression or persistence.
This seems to promote Singapore as being founded upon aggression, self-centredness and intolerance instead.
Others who are caregivers, on the other hand, are often treated as or labeled "mad animal lovers". How often do we have to correct the TC officers we deal with to address us as "Resident Volunteers" and not "cat lovers", a term they had used liberally!
It is frustrating, especially when we deal with complaints as trivial as "there are cats in the void deck, or there are cats coming out of the drain"! These people actually want NOT to ever see a cat wherever they go!!!
Well said corinne.
Hopefully the terms "care givers" and "community cats" become terms of reference by town councils. I received an email from my SPO (Senior Property Officer) addressing me as "cat welfare volunteer". I called him up to correct him that I am "just a resident" who volunteers to manage the cats in the community. We are not some crazy cat lovers who want MORE cats. In fact we would prefer LESS cats because of the sufferings caused by intolerance and also from abuse, poisoning (intentional and unintentional) and being run over by cars, etc, but we DO NOT agree to killing in managing problems but advocate the humane method of sterilisation.
we need more caregivers like you Anonymous to speak up. If the words are used often enough, then TC officers will become familiar with them - and will hopefully use them too.
Anonymous of 6.13pm - you are absolutely right.
People who like cats do not want more cats in the communities - they want LESS cats. LESS means cat care-givers have less cats to care for and more money to spend on themselves.
If TCs understand that - they will realise that cat care-givers want the same things as TCs.
There is a large group of available and dedicated volunteers who would manage the cat colonies, sterilise the community cats and take care of residents' complaints.
Why won't TCs work with the cat care-givers ?
Cat care-givers are residents just as the people who complain about cats - equal rights shd be given to both parties.
In fact I was told that the foreign worker who was instructed to trap the cat "illegally" to be relocated, complaint about "wasting" hours to trap just one cat! From this, if only the town council can "see" how much time dedicated care-givers spend to catch EVERY cat in the estate so that they can achieve a drop in the numbers or at least to match the number of "thrown down" cats and kittens from irresponsible owners!, they will see that these are the REAL people who deserve PBM awards, rather than some RC people who only know how to use their "oral traps" to un-kart their MP!
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