Benefit Cosmetics: Bold is Beautiful Workshop

On Sunday 5th May, Aidha hosted a workshop in partnership with Benefit Cosmetics at UWCSEA Campus. The workshop had an entrepreneurial panel by Christabel Chua (Bellywellyjelly), one of Singapore’s best lifestyle & beauty influencers and owner of online fashion store, kāi and a creative eyebrow workshop by Benefit Cosmetics.

Christabel Chua spoke about her journey as an entrepreneur and highlighted some great insights that will help our students in their own entrepreneurial path in the future. One of the strategies she spoke about was forming partnerships to drive more business and spoke to all of us about her recent partnership with Starbucks! Towards the end of the session, the students were tasked to create a business idea for a collaboration of kāi’s range of Dayly & Averi Clutches & Benefit brow products. The winning team, “Beautiful is YOU!” wowed the judges with their great product knowledge and presentation skills which got them to win a goodie bag from Benefit Cosmetics!

Inaugural Weekday Class @ BNY Mellon on April 10, 2019

After months of planning, we are pleased to announce that Aidha’s inaugural weekday class has started on Wednesday 10th April!

This is in partnership with @BNY Mellon and we are so excited to collaborate with them on this. We had 19 students enrolled and they were excited to be part of the first cohort of the weekday class. A big thank you to the BNY Mellon team and especially Ashley Park Frazier who spearheaded the project along with Hwee Choo, Woonlu Tan and Sarat Krovvidi. BNY Mellon has always been a huge supporter of Aidha and we are happy that we are able to continue with the partnership.

There are a total of 12 employees from BNY Mellon who would be mentoring the classes and this is a good chance for their employees to volunteer during office hours. We appreciate the support given and are enthusiastic over the response and support of the employers and we hope to see more of this. 

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Trainees’ Team Building & Training on 31st Mar 2019

On Sunday, 31st Mar 2019, Janet Evangelista, Aidha’s campus manager organised training for our trainees at United World College Dover!

We also enlisted expert help from the amazing people at BTS, Darren Lim and Laura Zaccaria to facilitate the training session. The training was conducted so that operations on Sundays can run smoothly and students, mentors and volunteers can enjoy their day at the campus. In addition to that, participants learnt how to work as a team and improve communication skills amongst each other.

 Thanks to all of the passionate and enthusiastic trainees for attending and helping us to run the campus every Sunday! We would not be able to run the campus without their support!

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Sri Lankan Community Celebration on March 31, 2019

On Sunday, 31 March, Aidha was invited to be a part of a special event, Sinhala & Tamil New Year Festival hosted by Danushka, an Aidha student from Sri Lanka at West Coast Park.

It was a celebration of the uniqueness and splendour of their culture and traditions! They commenced the festival by the lighting of the oil lamp that signifies good luck and power. Then, they started out with a beautiful, traditional Sinhalese dance and wrapped up with loads of fun games and activities.

A big thanks to the Sri Lankan community and Danusha, especially, for giving Aidha the opportunity to be part of their special day. Also thanks to Ida Supahat and Paula Samtaney for the amazing clicks capturing the awesome moments from the day. 

For more pictures of the day, click here.

#IWD19 Movie Screening and Photography & Poetry Show on 10 Mar 2019

On Sunday 10th March, the Aidha community gathered to celebrate International Women’s Day at the Malay Heritage Centre. There was lots of laughter and emotion, resulting in a fun day for everyone!

First, we watched a screening of The Helper Documentary which gave a great insight into the lives of FDWs in Hong Kong, and then the IWD poets and photographers presented their #StrongerTogether pieces.

Thank you to Naive Gascon & Amanda Chong and Davy Animas & Tatiana Luo; Nabilah Said & Deni Apriyani and Victoria Allan & Kae Yuan; Theophilus Kwek & Yulia Endang and Mayrhose Coronado & Rania Mneimneh; Nupur Saraswat & Sugiarti Mustiarjo and Josephine Abay-Abay & Weilun Sheng; Marc Nair & Rea Maac and Dini Handayani & Elvin Ling. Also, thank you to all our attendees, volunteers, and event photographers David Boot and Ana Rohana. We hope you all continue to feel stronger together!

Click here to see more pictures from the event!

International Women’s Day 2019: Movie Screening @ Facebook APAC Office on 7 Mar 2019

On 7th March, Aidha celebrated its first International Women’s Day event of 2019 at the Facebook office! The event was attended by members of the public who were all there to watch a special screening of The Helper documentary.

Afterwards, attendees were joined by 3 panelists who discussed some of the issues that were highlighted in the movie. Associate Professor Anju Mary Paul of Yale NUS college, Aidha’s CEO Ms. Jacqueline Loh, and Aidha alumni Ms Mayrhose Coronado talked about how working conditions can be improved for FDWs, possible policy changes in Singapore, and how regular people can help, amongst other topics.

We would like to thank Facebook for providing an amazing screening venue and to Macquarie and Prudential for sponsoring the refreshments. Special thanks go out to the organising team, which comprised of Libby Beeching and Vikram Bangara (Macquarie), Yeoh El Lynn and Carrie Ann Mathews (Prudential) and Anni Tankhiwale and Shanti Alexander (Facebook). Finally, thanks to our volunteers Amanpreet Singh Chadha and Goh QY for capturing these wonderful photos.

Click here to see more photos from the event!

Aidha Outreach @ Covenant Presbyterian Church on 17 Feb 2019

On Sunday, 17th February, Aidha kicked off its first outreach program for 2019 with an information session at the Covenant Presbyterian Church. The session was aimed at introducing Aidha to the Sri Lankan Community of Singapore. We received an extremely warm welcome thanks to Pastor Christina and the very enthusiastic members of the Sri Lankan community.

Aidha staff, Ida Supahat spoke to the group of Aidha’s mission, activities and achievements. The program was a huge success thanks to our volunteers Arachchilage Danushka S J JaYakodi, Rupa Hemanthi Gamnila Gerada Dissanayake, Neeladeniya Swarnalatha, and Malanee Podimenike Korale Gedara who shared their stories and experiences with everyone present.

Thanks a lot to each of you for taking time out to do this with us. A big thanks to Church for hosting us and giving us this opportunity.

Click here to see pictures of the event.

gTech for Good Workshop @ the Google Office on 7 April 2019

On Sunday, April 7, 2019, Aidha headed down to the Google Office to learn about using Google and its apps to improve personal finance tracking.

Around 50 students from Aidha headed to the workshop where volunteers from Google had prepared everything for Aidha students to have an informative yet fun day! During the workshop session, we touched upon many topics like “Learn how to use Google apps to plan activities and budgeting” in an interactive manner which made it all the more interesting. 

Click here to see the pictures of the event.

#SheMeansBusiness Workshop on 27 January 2019

On Sunday, 27th Jan 2019, Aidha along with a group of foreign domestic workers (Aidha students and non-students) headed to Facebook’s Asia-Pacific office for a presentation on using Facebook for business from 9.30am to 1pm.

It was quite an exciting day as Aidha partnered with #SheMeansBusiness. Participants learnt how free apps can be used to create engaging content which can be used for business growth. The Facebook team led the presentation and shared tips on how to use free apps to create content and the importance of privacy/security when using Facebook. They also highlighted to the attendees the difference between Business vs Personal Profile Page – which is crucial to anyone kickstarting their company.

A big thank you to the Facebook team for organising the workshop and sharing all those great insights with our students.

Click here to see the pictures of the event.

Aidha Graduation Ceremony 2018

On Sunday, 28 October 2018, we saw our Aidha graduates receive their certifications for completing two courses at Aidha, some completing courses from our previous curriculum and some from our new curriculum. We are also proud that to present our first ever Honours Graduates for 2018! We would like to give special thanks to the following guests, for making it happens: Our amazing emcee, Ms Ting Claravall, our Keynote speaker, Ms Anita Kapoor who shared about our inner fire and how our fire inside, pushes us, makes us to new things and gives us the energy to do everything we want to! Thank you to the embassy representatives especially, Ms. Hnin Nu Nu Aung, the Second Secretary and Mr. Thu Ko Ko Soe Attache, Embassy of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and Mr Victorio Mario M Dimagiba, Jr, the Deputy Head of Mission / Minister and Consul General, Embassy of the Philippines in Singapore.

Special thanks to our event sponsors: The Australian Chamber of Commerce (AustCham) and Singapore Floral Garage. Not forgetting, our Volunteer Project Team who contributed to the ceremony: Anya Svintsova, Nägin Chater-Sahab, Virginie Esparon, Weilun Sheng – and the talented choreographer, Sari Marsden!

We would also like to thank all the attendees, graduates, employers, friends of the graduates and of course, the volunteers and staff members who made it possible on that day! Last but not least, we would like to congratulate the following students: For Best Personal Financial Plan: Ms Rara Anggriani – Aidha 2018 Graduation Personal Financial Plan Competition, Runner Up and Ms Gleia Mae Dagoyo Duenas – Aidha 2018 Graduation Personal Financial Plan Competition, Winner. And for Best Business Plan: Sri Rohanah – Aidha 2018 Graduation Business Plan Competition, Runner Up and Musatomah – Aidha 2018 Graduation Business Plan Competition, Winner Once again, we would like to congratulate all graduates of 2018!

Check out the full photo album here.