Non-profit offers training courses for foreign domestic workers

SINGAPORE — Employers who are looking to give their newly-hired maids additional skills beyond the basics — such as how to care for a family member with dementia — can consider tapping courses offered by the Foreign Domestic Worker Association for Social Support and Training (FAST).

Working with employment agencies and training providers, FAST, a non-profit organisation, has launched a new programme that complements the mandatory one-day Settling-In Programme (SIP) for first-time maids in Singapore.

Called the Foreign Domestic Worker’s Integration and Training (FIT) Support Programme, the classes offered are more skills-based compared with SIP modules, which focus more on safety as well as relationship and stress management. FIT courses include cooking classes, infant care, eldercare, dementia care, housekeeping, basic English, TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) pain relief techniques and massage for pain management.

FAST will also conduct heritage and education tours for first-time domestic workers to help them better orientate themselves in their new working environment.

The pilot programme was announced yesterday, when Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) were also signed with 14 employment agencies and six training providers. It will officially start on Monday.

FAST president Seah Seng Choon said FIT hopes to cultivate a culture of skill enhancement and continuing training for maids, to help them better understand Singapore’s culture and customs and persuade employers to give their maids better work-life balance — they can spend their rest days more meaningfully at FAST’s FDW (Foreign Domestic Worker) Befrienders Club, for example.

“With better skills, with better knowledge and with better assimilation into the culture we are familiar with, FDWs will be able to contribute better to the employers, and this would, in a way, lessen the stress of employers in Singapore,” Mr Seah said.

The courses, which run for about three to four hours, are subsidised by FAST. For instance, published rates for eldercare courses are S$26 a module. After subsidies, the cost comes down to S$15 per module.

Prospective employers can sign up for the programme for S$50, inclusive of one ticket for a heritage and educational tour, one-year free membership to the FDW Befrienders Club and S$50 worth of training coupons for employers to enrol their workers in up to five programmes.

As part of the pilot, some agencies have agreed to absorb this cost for employers.