Uplifters
empowers foreign domestic workers through online education. Their free online money management and personal growth programme helps them budget, save and prepare for the future.
Meet Marie Kretz Di Meglio, Founder and CEO of Uplifters
I am based in Hong Kong.
If I ever write a biography this would be its title: ‘Dare More’
To me, making an impact means: give people the tools to transform their lives, feel better and do better.
What makes you smile today?
A message from one of our students, a domestic worker in Hong Kong, telling me she loved her online course and that she is now saving more and saying no to her family members when they make unnecessary money requests!
I’ve had a lot of achievements to celebrate recently and that’s really heart warming after one year working pretty intensively on Uplifters (and giving birth to a beautiful baby boy in October – 2018 was a busy year for me).
First I am not alone anymore and I have a team of about 15 volunteers working with me and more than 30 domestic workers trained as team leaders to help new students during their course. Our courses are online but not alone. Students are enrolled in class chats of 10 people where they interact and get support from their peers.
We had our biggest batch so far in January with 99 students (we launch every month a session of Dare to Dream, our 3-week online money management course).
We launched a crowdfunding campaign on Jan 14th (until now Uplifters is totally self-funded) and 10 days later, we’ve almost already reached our initial goal of HKD 80K.
I am a rather introverted person and that was not easy for me to ask people to support my non-profit. I said to myself: you keep pushing your students to dare more, so you must do it as well!
Why should people care about your cause/vision?
There are about 400,000 foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong. They represent 10% of the workforce and they are indeed the backbone of society, taking care of the children and the elderly in most local households. They leave their own families and children to build better futures for them. Let’s make sure this happens and that their sacrifices are worth it.
There is a misconception that because they do earn much higher salaries than in their home countries, they save and accumulate wealth. But usually from a 2 year contract, newcomers have to take a 4 month- salary loan to pay their agency fees (1). And after repaying their initial loan and debts back home, they send all their salary to their families for their daily needs. No money is saved or invested in productive assets. So their sacrifices only enable them to maintain a subsistence income. It also makes them very vulnerable as they can’t afford to lose their jobs.
There are more than 3 million foreign domestic workers in South East Asia and the Middle East (2). Helping them to build better futures for themselves also has a ripple effect on their communities and their countries’ economic development. Indeed, remittances sent to developing countries (money sent by migrant workers to their countries of origin), are 4 times bigger than Official Development Aid and are more stable (3).
Uplifters comes from my experience of running an online learning centre in France followed by working for an NGO offering financial literacy courses to migrant domestic workers in Singapore (Aidha). I was moved by these amazing women, who come to study on their only day off, always with a smile on their face. I could not have imagined the hardships and sacrifices they endured before they told me. Their courage and resilience is truly inspiring. I witnessed the impact that the financial literacy courses had on their lives. I wanted to make these tools available on a larger scale through online education. I felt my expertise in online education could help make a difference and I would have been selfish not to try. We all deserve an education and we all deserve hope. I am also a mother of 2 young children (a 2.5 years and 3 month-old baby) and I hired a domestic worker two years ago. The discussions we had really encouraged me to create Uplifters. I guess Uplifters is also my way of saying thank you for the big sacrifice she makes, leaving her family to help me take care of my children.
(1) seefar.org, Modern Slavery in East Asia, 2016 Report – Indonesian and Filipinas domestic workers
(2) ILO International Labour Organisation 2015
(3) Worldbank Remittances Factbook 2016
Whats the hardest part about your work – and why do you still keep going?
I am not a big fan of fundraising. I would much rather concentrate on building the NGO and improving our programs. So, to give me
Who inspires you in the impact space, anyone you want to cheer on today?
I am a big fan of Michael Manio and the non-profit he created for domestic workers EmpowerU. EmpowerU – formerly known as The Domestic Worker Empowerment Project (DWEP) – is a civic organization under the auspices of The University of Hong Kong that provides free lectures, trainings and workshops mostly to migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong on Sundays. The ultimate aim of the program is to create a positive image for domestic workers, their families, and their employers. It teaches domestic workers lessons on practical Health and Nutrition, Basic Rights and Women Empowerment, Nature Appreciation, Physical Fitness, Performance Arts, thus upgrading their knowledge and skills for their respective work environments, and prepare for their homecoming.
They also just launched their crowdfunding campaign. They are seeking HK$500 scholarships for 500 domestic workers. Check their website: https://www.empoweru.io/.
What could everyone do right now to make this world a better place?
Easy! This is #impactsmile. In our online course Dare to Dream, we do a small morning ritual everyday with the students and it starts with a selfie of us smiling. Smiles makes you feel better and make people around you feel better as well. So start with smiling more to yourself and people around you! British researchers found that 1 smile is as good to your brain as 2000 bars of chocolate.
