Mavrinac Sarah
Organization: aidha
Year Founded: 2006
Country: Singapore
Website: www.aidha.org
Enriching lives through financial education, aidha helps migrant women successfully reintegrate into their home communities as entrepreneurs. Focus: Education, Enterprise Development, Migration, Women Geographic Area of Impact: Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia Model: Hybrid Non-Profit Number of Direct Beneficiaries: 500-700 (2009) Annual Budget: US$ 100,000 (2009) Percentage Earned Revenue: 80-90% Recognition: Social Entrepreneur of the Year, Singapore, 2008 Background Migration is one of the oldest responses to poverty. Today, almost 200 million impoverished individuals live outside their countries, working to feed their families back home. Rarely does this migration do more than sustain simple consumption. For too many families, migration only ensures that poverty is put temporarily on hold. Launched in September 2006, aidha is dedicated to helping migrant women find an economically feasible way to return home – to their communities, their husbands and their children. By nurturing their entrepreneurial skills and by supporting the design of practical business plans, aidha helps them find that way. Innovation and Activities The organization offers an array of money management, confidence-building, computing and entrepreneurship courses, specifically designed for women migrant workers. Its teaching methodologies are based on small group interactions, peer support and practical training. All of these courses are supported by supplemental coaching and business practicum experiences, allowing students to apply their nascent business and financial skills in a real business setting. Currently, aidha’s enrolled student numbers top 600 annually, while the indirect beneficiaries of its work totals over 5,000. There are also some 400 community and student volunteers who provide invaluable support in the delivery of aidha’s traditional classroom and innovative club and workshop programmes. Importantly, aidha’s action-oriented approach is scalable. Its programmes can be rolled out at minimal incremental cost to migrant populations in Singapore and throughout the Asian region. At the core of aidha’s growth strategy is the delivery of these programmes through multinational employers who collectively employ millions of lower-skilled migrant men and women to provide essential construction, manufacturing, logistics, housekeeping, or food and entertainment services. Through aidha-supported employment assistance programmes, employers are finding that their employees are more committed and productive. In 2010, aidha will launch is first major expansion effort, bringing its innovative educational methodologies and dramatic savings impact to thousands more migrants throughout South-east Asia and the Middle East. The Entrepreneur Dr Sarah Mavrinac, aidha’s founder and current president, is a Harvard-trained academic and committed advocate of financial education. Up until the end 2006, Sarah was a management professor, leading courses and conducting research at such leading global business schools as the Ivey Business School in Canada and INSEAD in France and Singapore. In 2005, while in Singapore with INSEAD, Sarah joined the executive committee of UNIFEM Singapore. While there, she was inspired by the concept of financial education for the socio-economic empowerment of women. In December 2006, Sarah left her post in academia to devote herself full-time to the strategic development and rapid expansion of aidha.
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