Happy New Year! If you haven’t made your New Year’s resolution yet, perhaps this can be it: to help ​​spread the word about Aidha’s programmes to all your family, friends and colleagues who have foreign domestic helpers.

There are currently about 227,000 foreign domestic workers employed in Singapore. Are you as surprised by this number as I am?. The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) predicts this number will rise to 300,000 by 2030. Increasingly, households are employing not just one but two foreign domestic workers – one to look after their children and one to help care for their elderly parents.

Aidha enrolled about 700 new students last year and we were aiming to enrol 1,000 this year. Rather inexplicably though, our outreach efforts to date have met with limited success. That means there are still many foreign domestic workers who continue to remit all their money home, have no savings, and consequently have very limited choices, even after working in Singapore for many years. It’s a truly tragic thing to see mothers and daughters separated from their families for such a long time, and with so little to show for it. But with your help, we can change this situation for more women. Enrol your helper at Aidha today and persuade everyone in your network to do so too. Instead of a Chinese New Year ​bonus, why not give your helper the gift of education at Aidha that will last a lifetime? Come along with her to our Open House on 28 Feb 2016 for a sample lesson and campus tour (see our website and FB page for details). Or click here to enrol her today and take advantage of special Chinese New Year promotion fees for our financial literacy modules.
​In addition to our existing classes, excitingly, this year sees the addition of new ​core ​programmes: ‘Improving Your English’ in April and a newly expanded Alumni Development Programme (ADP), comprising business workshops, a Business Plan Clinic, a Masterclass  and site visits. If your helper has already graduated but would still like more business support as well as stay networked within our positive, fun community, please check out our FB page and website for more details coming soon.

Thank you for helping us to reach out to more students. As that famous line goes, ‘every little helps!’