His idea for a haze shelter came when he thought he was going to die

In Kalimantan, located in Indonesian Borneo, young Intan was a schoolgirl who would make her way by foot to school every day, haze or no haze. One day, Intan collapsed on her way to school, and died. This was the stark reality Singaporean filmmaker and social change maker Wally Tham, 49, faced when he went […] The post His idea for a haze shelter came when he thought he was going to die appeared first on Salt&Light.

Religion Oct 21, 2026 0 6 Add to Reading List

His idea for a haze shelter came when he thought he was going to die

In Kalimantan, located in Indonesian Borneo, young Intan was a schoolgirl who would make her way by foot to school every day, haze or no haze. One day, Intan collapsed on her way to school, and died.

This was the stark reality Singaporean filmmaker and social change maker Wally Tham, 49, faced when he went to Kalimantan for the first time in 2015.

“That was when I realised children in Kalimantan were dying from the haze, some within 48 hours of exposure,” he tells Salt&Light.

The forest fires in Kalimantan. Photo courtesy of Ranu Welum.

The human skin cell measures around 30 microns, while a haze particle is 2.5 microns, a tenth the size. Therefore the particle easily permeates the cells, enters the bloodstream and travels through the body, entering organs like the heart and brain, triggering heart attacks and strokes.

Wally joined Let’s Help Kalimantan, a group of Singaporeans who had crowdfunded masks for the residents of Palangkaraya, Kalimantan. He went to Kalimantan with thousands of masks for the locals. But on the ground, facing the reality of what the people were dealing with, he quickly realised each mask was only going to be useful for one day.

Wally (standing) on his first trip to Kalimantan in 2015. Photo courtesy of Big Red Button.

By his final day in Kalimantan, he had given away all his equipment, thinking he was going to leave Indonesia and fly home to Singapore the next day.

But the haze was so bad the airport shut down, and Wally found himself stuck in Kalimantan, breathing in the haze and unable to think straight.

“I started to believe I was going to die,” he tells Salt&Light. “I wept. I thought, ‘This is it.’”

A brainwave that came out of mind fog

After Wally had let his fears out, two ideas came to his mind. The first was to cover his air-conditioner with a pillowcase.

“I knew that an air purifier is a simple machine. It’s just a fan that pushes dirty air through a membrane,” he explains. He measured the air quality in his room, and the pollutant level had dropped by 50%.

“Then the next thing that came to mind after I could breathe properly again was that I could maybe drive out. If planes can’t come in, then we can drive out of Kalimantan. It didn’t occur to me until that moment.”

In building that small safe room with whatever he had on hand, Wally inadvertently chanced upon the basic plan for the haze shelter that was to come.

“I realised you don’t need the most high-tech stuff. You can find ways to clean a space, seal a space and then manage the heat and the carbon dioxide issues after that,” he explains.

Wally arrived safely home and started talking to engineers, and together they came up with the principles by which to build the shelter. The first shelter cost about S$30,000 – a third of that out of Wally’s own pocket.

The first haze shelter built in 2016. Photo courtesy of Big Red Button.

“It was over-engineered,” Wally admits. “But it was quite a big space – I think we could hold about 60, 70 people there.”

That was how the idea of building haze shelters came about. Wally and his friends in Kalimantan – young Dayak people belonging to an organisation called Ranu Welum Foundation – began to pull together resources to build a space that could keep the haze out, filled with clean air, for children and the aged to escape from the outside air.

In 2016, the first haze shelter was created. Today, Wally and his friends have built 26 haze shelters in Kalimantan, which altogether provide clean air for 600 people.

The shelters are crafted from spaces in concrete buildings such as shophouses or church halls. These are sealed off from the outside air, with plastic curtains erected to keep the haze out, and air purifiers placed inside to clean the air.

Now, each shelter can be built for S$700, which makes it possible to help more people more quickly.

Kalimantan: Over 10 times Singapore’s PSI levels

Singapore experienced haze conditions as early on as the 1962, but the worst haze the island state has encountered was in 2013 and 2015, when forest clearing in Sumatra took place and the PSI levels rose to above 300. The situation was – and continues to be – exacerbated by El Nino, a complex climate pattern that affects much of the world, bringing about higher temperatures, droughts and floods.

After three weeks of heavy haze, Singaporeans rejoiced because the hourly PM2.5 had dropped to under 100 at time of writing (October 20, 2026). According to the National Environment Agency, any 24-hour PSI level above 100 is deemed unhealthy.

Imagine how, in Kalimantan, the PSI levels remain at around 1500 to 2000 – more than 10 times what Singapore is experiencing. The pollutant level is so high that the air has turned an alarming orange.

The pollutant levels are so high in Kalimantan that the air appears orange. Photo courtesy of Ranu Welum.

“In Singapore, where the levels are 100 to 200, we get so much support from the government to deal with the haze,” says Wally.

“But in Kalimantan, every breath is choking. Even when you adapt to it, you feel dizzy, you get headaches, you can’t think straight.”

There is little to no reprieve for the people of Kalimantan. Hence the urgency of Wally’s work on the ground, building haze shelters primarily for the safety of children and the elderly.

Love thy neighbour

Wally’s work began at home in Singapore.

“We had been trying to be good neighbours since 2013,” he tells Salt&Light. “I read about how harmful haze was the elderly folks. When the haze hit that year, a lot of these folks didn’t have air-conditioners or air purifiers.”

Many of Singapore’s buildings are designed to allow for maximum airflow, but when a climate issue like the haze happens, these designs expose residents to harmful air.

“We spent a few thousand dollars buying air purifiers for three homes for the elderly,” he recalls.

Being in this space of dealing with the impact of the haze, Wally found himself connected to others doing the same work, including those at Renu Welum who have become good friends.

Wally and his friends from Ranu Welum in Kalimantan this year. Photo courtesy of Big Red Button.

Wally, who worships at Life Church, sees his work building the haze shelters and educating the public on the issue as very much part of his faith.

“There are the two Great Commandments: The first is love God and serve Him, and let the world see Him. The second is love your neighbour as yourself,” he tells Salt&Light, adding that in the secular space, talking about God may not be productive for solving issues such as the haze.

One day when he was doing a Bible study, he was struck by this question: “If we love God and He loves people, what should we do?”

This question has served as a springboard to all the change he pursues. Wally runs a production company, Big Red Button, which is behind his videos educating the public about the haze situation, and he is the co-founder of StandUpforSG, a ground-up group that stages public interventions.

Not stopped by roadblocks and loneliness

Early in his journey of building haze shelters, Wally and his friends teamed up with UNICEF to open doors and lobby the Indonesian government to set up more haze shelters.

Their efforts were met with resistance.

Wally recalls: “We decided to stop lobbying and just do the work. Within 48 hours we built another shelter. We just had to do it without too much extravagance.

“Once we decided we have to solve it and not try and wait on government, it transformed out mental model,” he tells Salt&Light.

He adds: “Maybe if I had listened to the verse a bit better, that I go and love my neighbour –not ‘I go to the government’ – maybe that would have saved me a lot of money (traveling to lobby the government). That was the approach that took us from two shelters pre-COVID to the 26 we now have running.”

Where bureaucracy failed them, Wally’s “good group of friends” more than filled the gap, working together with him and helping to fund efforts.

The hard work Wally and his friends put in year after year paid off when El Nino came back in June this year. They had stockpiled materials for haze shelters, and now could build 16 new shelters in just two months.

Sealing doorways to create a haze shelter. Photos courtesy of Ranu Welum.

One of the latest haze shelters Wally and his friends have built.

The haze shelter offers older people and young children a safe place with clean air.

The personal journey for Wally hasn’t been all smooth-sailing. As many others who are involved in social causes, the burnout is real.

“I went through a period of not being mentally healthy, thinking ‘I’m trying to do work the government should be doing by myself’ and feeling all alone,” he describes.

“The only way to manage stress is to talk to yourself. Let it out and acknowledge the truth of what I’m experiencing. It’s like the Psalms – when David was angry, he prayed terrible prayers!

“So have conversations with yourself. It’s even better when you have friends to have those conversations with.”

What happens next?

Wally has been putting out educational videos about the haze situation. One that drew over 180,000 views is a video on how fires start in Kalimantan, which was shared by other influencers.

“The truth of the matter is that we are trying to solve the problem arising from a half-century agricultural practice that has had billions and billions of dollars poured into it, so that they can earn even more billions of dollars.

“What I’m doing right now is, in very small steps, try to shift the understanding of the problem, that smoke is not something to ignore, or fires are not just to be put out on the surface,” says Wally.

“Everything we are doing is trying to work its way into the culture over there, so that people have better understanding of it.

“The haze is not going to end till February next year, but it will be back. We are still going to have to educate people along the way and to be ready for the next time.”

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

If you would like to support Wally and his friends in building haze shelters, please contact Wally at wallytham@gmail.com
Share these videos and reels on social media and help create better understanding of the situation and how we can be good neighbours
• An early video on the haze shelter projects and how you can help
• Understand how come the fires are so bad
• Follow Wally on Instagram @wallytham
Social change champion Melissa Kwee detailed in her LinkedIn post many ways every individual can play a part in changing the haze situation. Click here to read and participate.