Friday, Sep 16, 2011
Gulf News
The Adopt A Labourer campaign by the NGO SmartLife partners blue-collar workers in the UAE with white-collar workers in a mentor-mentee relationship
Only a year ago, Raju was computer-illiterate. Now he is a whiz at Excel, spread sheets and has recently opened a Facebook account.
Raju, 43, works at Barclays Cleaning Services and is one of the thousands of workers who migrate from the subcontinent to Dubai every month. Most of the workers come from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. They work for minimal wages at labour-intensive jobs, with only basic living conditions and without their families.
Raju’s life started to change when he joined SmartLife’s Adopt A Labourer campaign, which partners blue-collar workers who earn a monthly salary of less than Dh2,000 with white-collar workers in a mentor-mentee relationship. Raju completed a basic computer and English course a few months ago and is now spending his days off appearing for interviews for more qualified and better-paid jobs.
“Earlier people were helping me in the form of money but no one ever helped me pursue education,” Raju said.
“Since joining this organisation, my life and lifestyle have completely changed. Before I didn’t know how to use a computer, now I’m able to send e-mails, use power Excel and make consumer reports,” he added.
His mentor, Christy, is an Australian expat who works at the Australian consulate. She has been with SmartLife for about four months. She keeps in regular touch with him over the phone, offering him advice and motivation for his job hunting. “I’ve found it great because you can get directly involved in helping out, you can see the results. I’ve gotten to know Raju, my mentee, and am happy to have been able to help first-hand,” Christy said. “We’ve worked on his CV over the past few weeks and he has said he has had some good feedback from his interviews. He has done a lot of the interviews himself.”
Of SmartLife’s 124 registered mentors and 68 labourers, there are about 9 to 11 partnerships producing similar results, says Arun Krishnan, an Indian expat who helped start the organisation. In this partnership, the mentee attends classes in office etiquette, English and computer literacy. He is given homework and a number of tests before he gains certification.
The mentor is required to maintain constant contact with the mentee by calling them once a week to check on them and find out if they need any help in their homework or career development. While it is not a compulsory part of the mentor-mentee relationship, the two often arrange to meet once every couple of weeks to go through the mentee’s CV or help with job applications. The mentee does not receive any financial benefits, however — the relationship is based purely on offering support and advice.
The mentees are mostly employed in labour-intensive jobs such as cleaning and construction, while the mentors come from a wide range of industries — from banking to human resources. The majority of mentors are British and Indian expats, according to Krishnan.
The mentor stays with the mentee until they start earning a salary of about $1,889 (Dh4,000), which would allow them to bring their families to the UAE and look after them.
“The idea sprang up about six to seven years ago during a coffee break. We started thinking about how we could help and contribute to the community,” Krishnan said. “The lesser-privileged assistance in gaining confidence and enhancing their skills. To grow in these two areas, they need the companionship of the mentors.”
After the initial brainstorming session in the cafeteria, the colleagues, who have now moved on to work in different companies, decided to put their idea into action and started SmartLife in May 2010.
Initially the organisers found it hard to get close to the labourers and talk to them about the opportunities behind their idea.
“[Labour] camp bosses didn’t like our interventions because they saw it as us taking the labourers away. We were shooed away from the camps. We had to look elsewhere. Cricket is a popular Asian sport and on weekends you’re able to find a lot of labourers playing outside next to their camps. We thought it was a good idea for us to socialise this way,” Krishnan said.
Cricket for a cause
They decided to get to interact with the labourers in a language they both knew. SmartLife volunteers organised a cricket tournament with nine teams, each a mix of white- and blue-collar workers. The success of the tournament sowed the seeds of the “Adopt A Labourer” programme. But it was still slow to catch on.
In the first computer-programme class set up by SmartLife, only four labourers signed up. There were 20 places available.
“There was a lot of scepticism at first. They didn’t believe we were going to help them,” Krishnan said.
Of the first four labourers, two have been promoted at their workplace.
Rajalingam Thathaiah was one of the first to enrol. At that time he was working as a cleaner and now he has a data entry job. Along with being proficient at making PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets, Rajalingam is also developing his newly discovered creative flair and has started classes in Photoshop.
“Earlier I didn’t know anything about how to present myself. But now when I go to an interview I know a lot more on how to answer questions,” he said.
SmartLife English classes have 15 to 20 participants in four to five batches. The group is now looking to introduce personal finance seminars to help labourers manage their money and not fall into the trap of taking loans at high interest rates.
The NGO now runs a website which holds a database of all the blue-collar workers who need assistance and white-collar workers who are looking to assist. The mentor picks a mentee they think they will be able to help best, given their skills and contacts.
Dubai has been built on a workforce of foreign labourers. Expatriates who make up 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the UAE’s 5.3 million population work mostly in construction, hospitality and domestic services. Indians alone make up 42.5 per cent of the UAE’s labour force.
Blue-collar workers earn minuscule pay, about 75 per cent of which they send home to their families. Taxi drivers and hotel workers earn on average $600 a month and construction workers get paid $200 a month on average. Raju earns only $300 a month and is looking to increase his salary as he improves his skill set.
A lot of these workers arrive from rural towns in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Bangladesh, with qualifications of their own.
“After going into the labour camps and speaking to the workers, we realised that there are a lot of people who are very well educated,” Krishnan said.
“Many of these guys have taken up the profession not by choice but by necessity. It could either be that a family member has passed away and they are faced with the sudden burden of having to look after the family, so have quit their studies, or they have degrees but aren’t able to get a job in their countries,” he added.
A number of NGOs and initiatives are working in other ways to help this burgeoning population. Schools-run appeals are held to collect clothes to send to workers in labour camps.
An expatriate mother and former investment banker, Saher Shaikh, founded the AdoptaCamp initiative in Dubai. Through this programme, more than 11,000 labourers from 36 camps have benefited from services such as English-language classes and sports activities. The non-profit organisation also ensures workers have constant access to basic needs such as food and water. While care boxes provide temporary relief in the form of daily utensils and food, it is the Chinese proverb that continues to ring through: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
With funding from Fortune Promoseven Group, a UAE-based advertising agency, SmartLife is working on building those skills.
“We were lucky to be donated some real estate in an area where all the labourers go and socialise. They interact there a lot and spend a lot of time there. It’s a good place for them to spend time to read, use computers, etc,” Krishnan said.
In its first couple of years of running, the NGO has already seen a lot of success and progress in the partnerships. However, keeping up the enthusiasm and motivation can sometimes be a challenge.
“Mentors need to know that the mentees are very sensitive. When someone says ‘I will do something for you’, they pin a lot of hope on it, since it is their future on the line,” said Rex Prakash, one of the co-founders of SmartLife and himself a mentor.
“Boosting their confidence levels is also very important, as a lot of blue-collar workers are quite scared to mingle with the white-collar workforce,” he added.
“We don’t sympathise with their cause, we empathise,” Krishnan said.
As Raju continues to apply for jobs and go to interviews, his outlook on life and hope to provide a better future for his children look better with every passing day.
“I don’t yet know what my talent is. But with my courses, I am beginning to understand a lot more about how to work everything on what I want and how to get it,” he said.
In Adopt A Labourer’s mentor-mentee partnership, the mentee attends classes in office etiquette, English and computer literacy. The mentor has to maintain constant contact with the mentee by calling him once a week to find out if he needs any help in his homework or career development
SmartLife
SmartLife, which was started in May 2010, is an Indian NGO which aims at providing courses and education for the Indian community in the UAE. The NGO offers workshops, short-term and long-term projects aimed at improving the lives of different groups of the Indian community. The NGO offers education and guidance in family finances, child education, retired life, food habits, etiquette, manners and careers.
For their Adopt A Labourer campaign, SmartLife partnered with Fortune Promoseven, one of the largest communications company in the Middle East and North Africa. They have provided the funding for the classes and equipment to help provide the blue-collar workers in the UAE who earn less than Dh2,000 a month with skills and an education.
By Aya Lowe?Staff Writer
Gulf News 2011. All rights reserved.
