Since the early twentieth century International Women’s Day on March 8 has been championing women’s advancement. Empowering rural women to end hunger and poverty is this year’s theme. Allianz is a supporting partner and has helped Singapore micro-business school aidha to enable poor women realize their dreams.
There are around 170,000 domestic helpers in Singapore. Most of them hail from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. They’re badly paid, and whether or not they get a single day a month off depends on the mood of their employer. Six years ago the organization 'aidha' was established, providing these women with the means to lead an independent life.
A Sanskrit word, aidha roughly translated means “the goal that we aspire to.” For Liza Padua the goal was a buffalo and a piece of land. After saving hard for two years, she had finished the circle – progressing from being a cleaning lady to a farmer.
Meanwhile, she has managed to get her entire family to work on the farm in her homeland the Philippines so that they no longer just sit and wait for her regular money transfers from Singapore. This too required a lot of hard work.
It is stories such as this one that moved Veronica Gamez to give up her well-paid job at Credit Suisse three years ago and move to aidha, which aims to make independent business women out of badly-paid domestic workers. The key is to save consistently. “It’s like Weight Watchers,” says Gamez using the controlled weight loss model to illustrate her point. “The basic idea is simple: if you want to lose weight, you’ve got to eat less and exercise more.”
Aidha’s concept is also based on a simple idea: you can only save if you don’t spend your money on other things. But with an average wage of 450 Singapore dollars a month (255 Euros) that domestic workers receive in Singapore, this may sound illusory. Yet Liza Padua isn’t the only one to have realized her dream.
An offshoot of an initiative set up by UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women), aidha provides courses, communication seminars and basic financial education: How do I open a bank account? How do I keep an overview of my expenses? How do I manage to save a fixed amount each month?
Perhaps the most important goal that aidha wishes to achieve, which in the end will decide the success or failure of the program, is toreinforce the women’s feelings of self-worth.They learn not only to set themselves specific goals but also how to express those goals and to defend them if need be.
This is an important point, says Veronica Gamez, because when the amount of money transferred each month suddenly goes down because the bread-winner has started to save, the family at home is often up in arms.
“They don’t ask for money,” says Gamez, who has been Executive Director of aidha since 2010. “They expect it, they demand it. No wonder many women live and work in Singapore for years without saving a single dollar.”
Such a situation is often accompanied by guilt because many of the women have had to leave their children behind when they go abroad. So to be hard in such circumstances and assert yourself in the face of your family’s demands and finally say no requires inner strength. The support of the other course participants is therefore extremely important, says Gamez. “They help each other, encourage each other, and share their modest successes.”
Those who manage to stand their ground are awarded a badge bearing the words “My 1st No.” “As soon as the family members see what can be bought with the money – a piece of land, a pig, a buffalo, or a motorcycle – they fall in line,” says Gamez. “These women are an inspiration to their families and others.”
Aidha is one of the social initiatives sponsored this year by Allianz as part of the Social OPEX program, the aim being to make work routines more efficient and effective.
Social OPEX aims to share Allianz' know-how and business skills with socially committed organizations. It combines OPEX (OPerational EXcellence) – an internal quality management approach with employee engagement in the social sector.
Among other kinds of assistance, Allianz employees have helped the aidha team allocate lessons and projects in a way that they can be more efficiently matched to available capacity.
Last year the main challenge was to channel the growing flood of volunteers and offers of help. This is very welcome but confronts the aidha team with increasing organizational problems. “We’re being swamped with inquiries,” says Gamez.
While the aidha team is getting to grips with the implications of increasing popularity, Veronica Gamez and aidha founder Sarah Mavrinac are considering how the concept can be transplanted to other countries. US-born Mavrinac now lives in Abu Dhabi and plans to launch a similar project there. And Gamez also has plans to expand: at some point she would like to establish a branch in Los Angeles, where many Mexican immigrants live.
They too send money home on a regular basis without, however, making any significant impact on their precarious situation – neither on their own lives nor on that of their families back home. “It’s the same principle as here in Singapore,” says Gamez: “If you don’t save consistently, the money just trickles away. I know that our concept works,” she adds. “I see it every day.”
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