Her online guide is bringing Singaporeans and their domestic helpers together
Ever since becoming a mother, Tracy Wong has relied on the support of domestic workers to help run her household. "I cannot alive without their support. Their work makes all our work possible," shared the 42-twelvemonth-old mother of a vi- and four-twelvemonth-one-time, quoting the prominent American domestic worker activist Poo Ai-jen.
Nonetheless, when the sometime Tv producer found out that her outset Indonesian domestic helper had naively shared pictures of her and then-toddler son on Facebook without her cognition, she remembered becoming very upset.
Wong wanted to properly and calmly explain to her helper why this was, however innocent, inappropriate and potentially harmful – but she didn't speak her helper's language.
"I ended up asking a friend to detect news articles written in Bahasa Indonesia that I passed on to my domestic worker to read so that she could fully empathise the dangers of sharing children's photos on social media," said Wong.
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She then found herself relying on YouTube recipe videos to teach her adjacent domestic helper how to cook, while narrating over the prune slowly so that her helper could understand better.
The light bulb moment came when her sister's domestic helper of v years confessed out of the blueish one day to borrowing from illegal moneylenders.
"This led to harassment past the moneylenders and eventually, my sis filed a police force report," shared Wong. "I was worried my domestic worker would practice the same, so I made a video on financial literacy and budgeting and asked a friend to narrate it in Bahasa Indonesia."
That video became the first ever fabricated for Step Upward, an online video training platform that guides Foreign Domestic Workers (FDW) on what it takes to treat homes and family members.
"Looking back and connecting the dots, information technology'south all these experiences that led me to eventually create Step Up," said Wong.
Aimed at benefiting both employers and domestic workers alike, this is an online video application that can be accessed across all devices and anywhere, including the domestic workers' home countries. And what makes information technology stand out is that all the videos are narrated in the workers' native languages, with almost 50 videos in Bahasa Republic of indonesia and Tagalog languages. The Burmese language volition be added at a later date.
The online video application, which was created by Wong'south video tech visitor Infini Videos nether Mediacorp's Mediapreneur startup program, is a get-go of its kind in Singapore. There are currently no other training technology apps for FDWs to increase their skills.
"I've e'er been interested in the intersection between tech and video and that's what we've been doing at Infini Videos: creating video tools for content publishers," shared Wong.
"Engineering science has enabled people to create videos faster and more cost-efficiently. And using some of these new online tools have helped me calibration up the Step Upwardly video production."
According to Wong, the most challenging part of the process of starting the online video application was researching and translating the content from English to the domestic workers' native languages.
"I had to consider cultural nuances and as well make sure some terms or words were not lost in translation," she explained. Other than that, Wong confessed that the tech cease of starting this from scratch was not as overwhelming every bit one might think.
"It's non difficult to create a learning management system (LMS), although at the showtime, at that place was a lot of idea that went into the UI and UX design," she explained. "It needed to appeal to employers and more importantly, be simple plenty for the domestic workers to navigate the web app, view the videos and take quizzes. I think we accomplished that based on the feedback we've received and then far."
The online training application is designed in a way that employers can hands see the videos, add together to their domestic workers' video library and also have a quick view of the domestic workers' progress.
Separately, the domestic workers have their own login details, with instructions in their native languages. They can watch and discover videos like they would on YouTube.
"Many people I know have had issues with their new domestic workers, mainly because the domestic workers claimed they accept the relevant experience or were trained back domicile during the interview procedure, but it was a unlike story altogether in one case they started work," she explained. "Some do not even know how to iron wearing apparel correctly or operate electrical appliances."
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Wong cited a 2022 survey past the Eye for Domestic Employees (CDE), an organisation which looks later on the needs of domestic workers hither in Singapore. Of the 1,004 Singapore employers surveyed, only 54 per cent felt that their workers were adequately trained, despite the workers' claims to have undergone training.
"Skills aside, many domestic workers also lack fiscal literacy. They do not know how to save money, and are susceptible to scams or get-rich-quick schemes, like my sister's domestic worker's money borrowing incident," Wong added.
"That is why education on social and professional behaviour is important, because a poor judgement could impact the domestic worker and her employer'due south family, especially because of the live-in nature of the job.
Wong is currently working with employment agencies like Family Maids, TM Global HR Consultancy, and Spring Helper to offering her online training application to employers and their new domestic workers and then that the video grooming tin can commence fifty-fifty earlier their hires get in in Singapore.
"This means that employers tin choose specific video topics such as (on) baby care and their domestic workers can commencement learning immediately," she explained.
"Research has shown that video is the best medium for learning, as viewers retain 95 per cent of a message when they spotter it on a video compared to 10 per cent by reading it. With younger women from Asia joining the domestic piece of work sector as FDWs, this millennial generation of digital natives who are savvy in various social media and video apps can combine online learning with on-the-job training to exist amend prepared for their part and in the long run, become more than productive at their jobs."
According to Wong, the list of video topics available have been carefully researched in consultation with the Ministry of Manpower, FDW welfare groups, employment agencies and employers of domestic workers.
"Every group I've met has been enthusiastic about the video topics presented to them and they were likewise eager to add to the list," she said. "Employment agencies stand for both the employers and the domestic workers so they suggested more than vocational grooming topics. Employers by and large want their households to run efficiently without any trouble so they suggested video topics related to professional person behaviour."
At the finish of the twenty-four hours, for Wong, it's all about making communication between employer and employee only that much easier.
"Ultimately, Step Upwards is designed to help employers do the heavy lifting," she said. "Information technology tin also educate their domestic workers on topics that busy employers overlook, such as 'How to not fall for scams', which could ruin a perfectly expert employer-domestic worker relationship if that happened."
Sign up for the online video application at https://stepup.video/.
In partnership with Singtel.
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