Singapore aims for digital inclusion - however, there is a concerning surge in digital scams in recent years posing significant risks for everyone. Seniors in particular are often vulnerable and susceptible as many have limited understanding of digital tools and risks. A 2020 Cybersecurity Awareness Survey revealed that one in three seniors still do not know about phishing, highlighting the urgent need to ramp up awareness/ education efforts for this segment.
The challenge lies in the fact that seniors – be it due to differences in language ability, interest, exposure/access, lifestyle and/or other factors – require a highly customised communications approach. This is especially so considering isolated seniors who may not have families/friends/social circles to turn to for such information, and who may not even be aware of what most assume to be public or common information.
Recognising that we cannot rely on conventional awareness/ engagement methods (e.g. police advisories/alerts, customer EDMs, social content), we challenged ourselves to innovate new ways to reach the seniors. This gave rise to “Your Neighbourhood Getai” – a novel edutainment approach enabling us to reach out to seniors in spaces where they are comfortable, and effectively educate/ engage them on digital literacy in banking & finance, conducted in a way that is fun, meaningful, and filled with nostalgic community spirit reminiscent of the early days where they lived in ‘kampungs’ (or villages). We intentionally designed these sessions to include hands-on opportunities to ensure our engagement efforts go beyond theory and can spark behavioural change.
Led by DBS Foundation and POSB, “Your Neighbourhood Getai” is a novel edutainment approach that combines Getai entertainment (a local festive live stage performance of music & songs) with digital literacy education, and stems from the need to ramp up anti-scam awareness/education among seniors who may not have access to and/or naturally interface such materials on their own.
Each instalment featured live Getai performances that incorporated key digital literacy tips, to ensure seniors were learning in a fun way; we also arranged for our staff volunteers to helm digital literacy workshops at these events. Together, this arrangement enabled and incentivised the seniors to put what they have learned at the digital literacy workshops into practice right away, whilst also sparking the ripple effect of driving higher traffic to hawker centres. Turning this idea into reality required the bank to galvanise/mobilise multiple stakeholders:
“Your Neighbourhood Getai” needed an effective delivery format to celebrate culture, community and digital literacy all in one place. The events comprised several key components aimed at engaging and educating attendees effectively:
Participants are then encouraged to apply their newfound knowledge by making a cashless payment at one of the hawker stalls using DBS PayLah! (using the cash incentive loaded into their app given at the end of the workshop) – this also helps encourage additional business for the hawker stalls.
The events have since drawn >3K engaged seniors. Below are some results:
Beneficiary Story
“Ricky Lee (76) owns a coffee stall at Mei Ling Market & Food Centre - it was his first time attending a digital literacy workshop at Your Neighbourhood Getai – an experience that he found “very helpful for seniors like myself”. The fact that the events are held at hawker centres “makes it very convenient for the seniors”, he said.”
This successful private-public effort on anti-scam and other digital literacy topics and revitalising the neighbourhoods, caught the attention of the government with several Political Office Holders– including PM Lawrence Wong, Minister for Education Chan Chun Sing. We started receiving requests from more community/ grassroots partners to host “Your Neighbourhood Getai”, which led to its expansion into a signature event of ours today.
