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I am not a teacher, nor would I ever attempt to label myself a computer expert. So what am I doing teaching computer workshop classes to groups of Filipino women twice a month? What do I have to offer these women? Do I really even know what I am talking about? What if I fail as a teacher or come across nervous or can’t explain something? What will they think of me? How will that make me feel?

After just a single session as a ‘teacher’, one quickly realizes that the sessions offer more than their titles would suggest and that your role is about more than instruction. It’s about giving your time and attention. It’s also about treating them as students rather than maids, teaching them rather than telling them, encouraging them rather than criticizing them, building them up one email or skype account at a time. It’s about arming these women with the simple skills that will open up a world of communication to them – an email account, a Skype account – or teaching them how to format a business letter that they might one day send to a prospective employer, or helping them build a spreadsheet that they might use to track their savings or their future business profits. Tangible, useful skills. Eager and appreciative students whose eyes literally light up when they send and receive that first email message or observe their profile appear on facebook. Genuine appreciation for time spent together.

Volunteer contributions come in many sizes and each one matters. You don’t need to be a teacher or an expert. You don’t need to devote countless hours. A single hour on a Sunday can provide more meaning and skills to a migrant woman than one could ever imagine.

To help you learn more about aidha, we have invested in the creation of a wealth of new video materials. Of course, they are of the ‘home-made’ sort; nonetheless, they all tell a story. Below, please find just a few of our treasures. Enjoy!

our original ‘introduction’ to aidha

amelia ‘discovers’ aidha

aidha in action 2009

To view more aidha videos, please visit our youtube channel at www.youtube.com/user/aidha2008.

In November 2008, I was privileged to receive recognition from the Schwab Foundation as Singapore’s Social Entrepreneur of the Year. Because of this award, aidha has realized truly heartwarming press and recognition. We are grateful!

But the award has given more than simple recognition. Affiliated with the prestigious World Economic Forum (WEF), the Schwab Foundation now offers me the opportunity not only to attend WEF meetings around the world but also to work on the WEF’s Global Redesign Initiative alongside some of the world’s most admired social leaders.

Most recently, I was invited to the WEF’s ‘Summer Davos’ event in Dalian China. There, I participated in one of their IdeasLabs, presenting my thoughts on how to scale aidha’s reach around the world. Here is a rough video of the presentation I gave using the the infamous ‘pecha kucha’ method. Please do take a look. I hope you find the ideas interesting. To learn more about the basics of our COMPASS CLUBS, click here. Enjoy!

all the best,

Sarah

aidha’s COMPASS CLUB vision

Join us! Together, you, aidha, and aidha’s inspiring students can end the pain of poverty in Southeast Asia. You provide the inspiration and financial support. aidha provides the educational materials and encouragement. Our students build the savings and invest in the working farms and businesses that generate sustainable, life-changing income.

Become **a Singapore friend of aidha ** an international friend of aidha, ** give a recurring gift OR ** give a friendship gift to a loved one this holiday season. Just scroll down to find the best option for you!

a Singapore friend of aidha.

Simply select your donation amount and click on the ‘buy’ button below.Remember you DO NOT NEED a paypal account. You can easily use your credit card on paypal’s safe payment site.

a singapore friend of aidha

Option 1 $50.00 Option 2 $100.00 Option 3 $250.00 Option 4 $500.00 Option 5 $1,000.00

an international friend of aidha (USD support).

Simply select your donation amount and click on the buy button to be taken to our secure paypal donation site. Remember you do NOT need a paypal account.

an international friend of aidha (USD)

Option 1 $50.00Option 2 $100.00Option 3 $250.00Option 4 $500.00Option 5 $1,000.00

Become a best friend! Give a recurring gift.

Click here to give $50 each and every month.

Click here to donate Singapore $100 each month.

Click here to donate Singapore $250 each month.

Give the gift of hope this holiday season. Give a gift in the name of a loved one!

Just click below and make your donation. When you click to ‘review your payment,’ you will be able to send a special message to us with the email address of your loved one. We’ll forward a gracious holiday card announcing the gift you have made in his or her name.

holiday gift options

Option 1 $50.00 Option 2 $100.00 Option 3 $250.00 Option 4 $500.00 Option 5 $1,000.00

We at aidha see daily the promise of Asia’s migrant women. We are witness to their investment and learning and we know firsthand the positive change they can create. Launched in late 2006 under the auspices of UNIFEM Singapore, aidha brings financial education and small business management training to its students. From the Philippines and Indonesia, from Sri Lanka and India, all of aidha’s students are migrant woman. They are powerful women, educated women. They are mothers and daughters and wives, many of whom have already invested five, ten, or fifteen years working to remit monies home for food and routine expenses. Now, they work not simply to remit. Now, they save and invest with the purposeful intent of creating a more vibrant and sustainable future for their children and communities.

How substantial is their contribution? Might they indeed be this ‘dawning force’? Collectively, could they end the pain of poverty in our region? Yes. With continuing education, with peer support, and with more directed and dedicated savings, we argue that they can. We are witness and we hope.

In truth, today, there are many who hope as we do at aidha. Until the millennium, the migration literature recognized the increasing swell of migration from developing nations almost exclusively as a failure of development or as that ‘scourge’ leading to ‘brain-drain’ and the breakdown of family structures. Since 2000, however, there has been a notable shift in tone. There is an optimism and increasing vigor in the assertions that international migration can indeed yield real economic benefit, benefit experienced not only by the migrants themselves but also by the at-home family members, if not yet their extended communities.

Every year, international migrants direct some $300 billion in remittances to fuel the budgets and bank accounts of left-at-home families in developing nations. Second in scale only to foreign direct investment and outstripping by far our languid overseas aid, how can such a sum not have impact? Indeed, the United Nations and World Bank now credit remittances with observable declines in developing world poverty. One 2007 World Bank report remarks that remittances may have reduced the number of documented poor in Bangladesh by 6 percentage points. Similar reports suggest that the children of remittance-recipient households in Sri Lanka have higher birth weight, better health indicators, and a lower school drop-out rate than other households. Household investments in education and entrepreneurship in other Southeast Asian countries also appear to be generally increasing with remittances from abroad.

The data is still sketchy and many of the larger, structured research studies recently initiated by the UN-INSTRAW, for example, are still ramping up. Nonetheless, the world community now appears committed to a more systematic evaluation of migration as a solution to poverty. And, slowly, the evidence of migration’s potential is emerging.

But the source of that potential is not simply remittances. Fascinatingly, as, like archaeologists, the UN and World Bank researchers sieve the data, a more specific power is being revealed. It is not simply remittances or migration. It is women.

Despite earning significantly less than their male counterparts, on average, the women migrants of Sri Lanka are responsible for more than 60% of the nation’s annual remittances. Bangladeshi women working in the Middle East appear to send home, on average, a full 72% of their earnings. For women in the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, the figures are similar. In general, women migrants appear to send a higher proportion of their earnings home than men. Regularly. Faithfully. And, they do so with significantly more focus on investment of their monies in education, health care, and social welfare than men.

At aidha, we work to take this work, this investment, and this potential to an entirely new level. Through our courses, our support services, and especially our COMPASS CLUBS, we help our students build the savings that will power still more productive investment. Our students, women who had worked here in Singapore for ten years and who had amassed no savings, women who had nothing to show for their time here other than the mounds of remittance receipts, now are the proud owners of small cafés back home. They have herds of cows and impressive tracts of land They have clean water and vehicles. They have new homes and new irrigation systems. Their children are productively in school. And, they have pride and a sense of accomplishment. What they have achieved is, without question, astounding. Our students, our migrant women are not simply potential. They are proven.

Imagine the impact of all 30 million Asian migrant women saving in this way, investing in this way. Were they to have the opportunity, there would be no question any longer of migration’s potential. It would be proven.

Each club is supported by dedicated mentors, who have been trained to facilitate the monthly meetings and encourage our students to start saving today!

The clubs are based on experiential learning where members peer support one another, develop leadership skills, discuss specific issues and create healthy competition among one another and among other clubs. The program actively rewards those clubs and members that accomplish commit to and accomplish savings goals.

The results have surpassed all expectations! Supporting one another, our club members have invested in fabulous new businesses and assets like these:

Three cows – and one of them is pregnant!
An extension of a house that will be host a new sari-sari shop
One carabao
One motorcycle making possible a new delivery service business
And one food court! with a 12 chair capacity!

We are absolutely delighted to see the clear results this program is driving. The commitment, the motivation and the efforts to save translate into productive assets that benefit all the families back home.

You’ll find more video interviews on the our students page. The full collection can be found on aidha’s video channel on YouTube.
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amelia
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she found aidha.

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june
discusses how aidha
has changed her life

Let’s all help the campaign grow! Visit the campaign’s website at www.dayoff.sg now to register your support.

aidha would like to applaud our friends at UNIFEM, National Committee Singapore, TWC2, and HOME for launching this important project.  It is a positive, life-changing initiative.  Congratulations to you all.

presenting the new aidha story book series!

aidha is proud to announce the launch of its inventive new series of storybooks for children. Produced as hard-bound, color illustrated, and personalizable ‘photobooks’, these books help pre-school children better understand and celebrate their family’s structure, parents’ background, and/or their own origins as an adopted child.

Each page features the beautiful artwork of Malaysian artist Thienny Lee as well as the space for your own photos. With your pictures and your own ‘fill in the blank’ notes, the work transforms itself into a family memento your child will cherish for years.

The first four books in the new aidha line up include:
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BOOK 1: When My Mom was Just a Little Girl
This personalized short story offers the child a chance to celebrate his or her mother and to learn more about her childhood and upbringing. your cost: S $15.00 Click here to see inside!

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BOOK 2: Love Goes ‘Round the World

This short photobook introduces the child to the family and life story of his/her migrant nanny or helper, allowing your child to more realistically and lovingly understand the sacrifice and love she brings to her work. Click here to see inside!

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BOOK 3: On the Day I was Born
This personalized book offers a pictorial introduction to the family’s newborn baby, providing details of his/her birth, family tree, and the world at the time s/he arrived. Click here to see inside. Enjoy!

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BOOK 4: On the Day I Came Home
This photobook is designed especially for adoptive families who want to communicate the love behind their adoption. Click here to watch the pages turn!

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All our storybooks are available for collection at the aidha office at 2 Nassim Road. If you would prefer to have your purchase mailed to you, please contact us at info@aidha.org or at 6732 5434 to make arrangements OR add $10 to your purchase by clicking the button below. This $10 will ensure shipping within Singapore for up to 4 books. You’ll need to call us if you want to ship more than 4 or if you want to ship internationally. Thank you for supporting aidha!

Add mailing to my account!

If you haven’t already seen the article, double-click the link http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_244477.html to take a look.

Happy reading! And thank you to all for your interest in and support of aidha!