Empowering women, enabling families
Ahead of International Women's Day on March 8, State of Escape's CEO and Singapore resident Desley Maidment met with Kaylee Kua, Executive Director of Daughters Of Tomorrow - an organisation supporting lower-income women in Singapore with building personal agency, and progressing toward gainful employment, stability and a better future. As we contemplate accelerating action this IWD, read on to learn more about how Daughters Of Tomorrow instils confidence and helps bridge women to opportunity.
Empowering women, enabling families
Ahead of International Women's Day on March 8, State of Escape's CEO and Singapore resident Desley Maidment met with Kaylee Kua, Executive Director of Daughters Of Tomorrow - an organisation supporting lower-income women in Singapore with building personal agency, and progressing toward gainful employment, stability and a better future. As we contemplate accelerating action this IWD, read on to learn more about how Daughters Of Tomorrow instils confidence and helps bridge women to opportunity.
Desley: Daughters Of Tomorrow aims to help women build agency in their communities. Tell us a bit more about what this means.
Kaylee: The vision of DOT is to Empower Women to Enable Families. We adopt a “Employ to Empower” approach that is phased to allow lower-income women to ease into the back-to-work journey. While DOT’s mission is to help women gain financial stability through sustainable livelihood opportunities, we have seen through the past decade of work with our clients, that building personal agency is the foundation that is critical for the women. Self-agency helps to give them confidence and motivation to work towards employment and other upskilling activities, creating lasting change - and without it, they may feel powerless to change their circumstances, even if they have capability and opportunity to do so. DOT uses its core Job Readiness Program, DOT Confidence Curriculum (DCC) to create a safe platform for sharing and support building amongst the community. One of the key outputs from the DCC is a career action plan, which forms the starting point of working towards employment.
Desley: Why is the support of DOT so needed in helping women to build this agency?
Kaylee: DOT creates of a safe space for vulnerable women to build personal agency, learn skills to enhance employability, access to empathetic employers who are able to look at job re-design and Core and Stable Scheduling to allow the women to ease into the workplace.DOT is supported by an eco-system of stakeholders including corporate partners; employer partners, funders and volunteers who come together to provide the support to women who struggle to find and stay in employment due to circumstances that they face.
We see multi-stressors are faced by clients who come to DOT and these create barriers that made it difficult for women to gain financial stability for themselves and their families, such as caregiving needs which tend to fall onto women especially in lower-income families; half of the clients supported by DOT are single mums and the caregiving needs and costs are often left to women; skills, education and experience may be absent or limited, which makes getting a full time job to support the family challenging.
Desley: Daughters Of Tomorrow aims to help women build agency in their communities. Tell us a bit more about what this means.
Kaylee: The vision of DOT is to Empower Women to Enable Families. We adopt a “Employ to Empower” approach that is phased to allow lower-income women to ease into the back-to-work journey. While DOT’s mission is to help women gain financial stability through sustainable livelihood opportunities, we have seen through the past decade of work with our clients, that building personal agency is the foundation that is critical for the women. Self-agency helps to give them confidence and motivation to work towards employment and other upskilling activities, creating lasting change - and without it, they may feel powerless to change their circumstances, even if they have capability and opportunity to do so. DOT uses its core Job Readiness Program, DOT Confidence Curriculum (DCC) to create a safe platform for sharing and support building amongst the community. One of the key outputs from the DCC is a career action plan, which forms the starting point of working towards employment.
Desley: Why is the support of DOT so needed in helping women to build this agency?
Kaylee: DOT creates of a safe space for vulnerable women to build personal agency, learn skills to enhance employability, access to empathetic employers who are able to look at job re-design and Core and Stable Scheduling to allow the women to ease into the workplace.DOT is supported by an eco-system of stakeholders including corporate partners; employer partners, funders and volunteers who come together to provide the support to women who struggle to find and stay in employment due to circumstances that they face.
We see multi-stressors are faced by clients who come to DOT and these create barriers that made it difficult for women to gain financial stability for themselves and their families, such as caregiving needs which tend to fall onto women especially in lower-income families; half of the clients supported by DOT are single mums and the caregiving needs and costs are often left to women; skills, education and experience may be absent or limited, which makes getting a full time job to support the family challenging.
Desley: What are the challenges you see women facing when trying to connect with DOT, and how do you help to solve them?
Kaylee: DOT clients are referred by community partners who work with lower-income families and one of the biggest challenges in engaging our clients is their capacity to invest time and energy into their self development. This is why at DOT, we conduct our programs island-wide, bringing our programs and services closer to their homes to minimize their travelling time and cost. Another key feature of our in-person programs is the availability of on-site childminding, where moms can bring their children along for their classes and volunteer childminders care for the children while moms can focus on their own development. In our befriending program, our volunteer befrienders are also encouraged to meet DOT clients in a public space near their homes. DOT also matches befrienders to our clients based on their preferred language, location and also compatibility in age and experience. This allows the befrienders to better connect with our clients and also provide better socio-emotional support.
Desley: How are women’s lives changed, post support from DOT?
Kaylee: The immediate short-term outcomes for women who have received services from DOT would be an improved sense of agency to take charge of her employment journey.
For women who have been stably employed for more than 6 months and continue to participate in DOT’s social mobility programs such as Savvy Saver and Family Stoplight, would result in an improvement of the family’s financial stability, resulting in an improvement of overall wellbeing.
Desley: How can people best get behind DOT?
Kaylee: Volunteer with DOT, fundraise with DOT and/or partner with DOT in hiring DOT clients.
If you would like to learn more, please visit daughtersoftomorrow.org
If you would like to learn more, please visit daughtersoftomorrow.org
Desley: What are the challenges you see women facing when trying to connect with DOT, and how do you help to solve them?
Kaylee: DOT clients are referred by community partners who work with lower-income families and one of the biggest challenges in engaging our clients is their capacity to invest time and energy into their self development. This is why at DOT, we conduct our programs island-wide, bringing our programs and services closer to their homes to minimize their travelling time and cost. Another key feature of our in-person programs is the availability of on-site childminding, where moms can bring their children along for their classes and volunteer childminders care for the children while moms can focus on their own development. In our befriending program, our volunteer befrienders are also encouraged to meet DOT clients in a public space near their homes. DOT also matches befrienders to our clients based on their preferred language, location and also compatibility in age and experience. This allows the befrienders to better connect with our clients and also provide better socio-emotional support.
Desley: How are women’s lives changed, post support from DOT?
Kaylee: The immediate short-term outcomes for women who have received services from DOT would be an improved sense of agency to take charge of her employment journey.
For women who have been stably employed for more than 6 months and continue to participate in DOT’s social mobility programs such as Savvy Saver and Family Stoplight, would result in an improvement of the family’s financial stability, resulting in an improvement of overall wellbeing.
Desley: How can people best get behind DOT?
Kaylee: Volunteer with DOT, fundraise with DOT and/or partner with DOT in hiring DOT clients.