By: Herni Azura Hashim (Inflight Services, Cabin Crew Training & Standards)
On 29th and 30th June 2010, WELKINS CCLOPS with the assistance of Cabin Crew Training & Standards and make up consultant Kawon had conducted a Grooming Workshop for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) Women Entrepreneur as part of the social program. This was a collaboration of Corporate Social Responsibility Project by WELKINS, CCTS, UNHCR and an NGO - Tech Outreach.
The majority of the participants were community leaders and representatives for the women folks from their respective ethnic communities. Collectively, they represented 5 different states of Myanmar, namely the Mon, Shan, Karen, Karenni and Chin; as well as the Rohingya ethnic group, which is a unique stateless ethnic group; and the Myanmar Muslim, which is the only group of people from the country who identify themselves based on their religions rather than individual ethnicity. Besides the Burmese, they were also other nations who joined the Workshop; the Somalis, Afghans and Sri Lankan.
As community leaders and representatives, they carry the daunting and challenging role of unifying and organizing the women within their communities. They also often act as the first "run-to" within their communities, assisting in emergencies like taking the sick to the hospital, providing shelter to those who need it, coordinating community support to refugees who have no jobs, no home, etc. They regularly meet with the officers from UNHCR to bring forth various concerns, problems and requests from their communities to discuss workable solutions and assistance from UNHCR, to receive information and to be trained in various areas such as health, education, women's rights, etc.; and later to disseminate this information and knowledge to other members within their community.
In essence, they often act as the bridge between their communities and UNHCR and facilitate the two-way communication between them as the communities are scattered in several states of Peninsular Malaysia.
Most of these women are doing works within their communities without any pay or receiving minimal stipend from their communities. As such, some have started small businesses and income generating activities (IGAs) that are home-based in order to support their own livelihood needs.
The Grooming Workshop was carried out to this group of refugee women to help develop and give them more confidence to conduct their entrepreneurial venture in a more professional manner. During the workshop, they were exposed to basic grooming technique which was conducted by Puan Nazimah and make up techniques by Kawon who fully sponsored the session.
A big thank you to everyone who was involved in making this program possible. The feedback from the participants were very positive as they valued the knowledge they gained from this workshop.
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