Creating opportunities for ex-offenders
Too often, ex-offenders struggle with unemployment as employers are reluctant to hire them due to their criminal past. These ex-offenders also struggle to stay away from their past criminal behaviours due to the lack of support and trust from the society.
Some ex-offenders are employed but commonly into low wage jobs in logistics and manufacturing industries.
Why Events?
We capitalised on our past experiences of managing events to pursue doing events. Despite the major differences between managing school events and industry-standard events, we were willing to take the leap.
We concluded that there is a demand for pop-up market events.
Our Objectives
Business Objectives
As a business, we have set the following projects to be completed by the end of January as a validation of our services:
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One graphic design project
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One events management pilot
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One pop-up market launch
Social Objectives
Employing one ex-offender as an assistant events executive to support in the planning and execution of our pop-up market launch.
Providing personal development opportunities to the ex-offender to assist him with reintegration into society.
Our Milestones
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Employed one
ex-offender and job training starts
October 2018
Designed a logo for a start-up business
December 2018 - January 2019
Managed Project ActivAid, a mental health roadshow in Ngee Ann Polytechnic
3 January 2019
Support group and personal development session for
our beneficiary
7 January 2019
Organised Geddit!,
our first pop-up market
12 - 13 January 2019
Our Key Takeaways
Early planning
We learnt the importance of planning early so as to minimize the potential challenges in the future. We learned this the hard way as there were times where we struggled with deadlines, and missed potential opportunities, which would have been avoided if we planned ahead of time.
Walk in someone else's shoes
We always assume that what we knew about our beneficiaries is sufficient. We often forget that everyone has their unique experiences and especially with ex-offenders, their experience is drastically different. What we think they need may not be what they actually need.
Clear communication
This project allowed us to really understand the value of communication. Clear communication within the team is essential to ensure that a team moves together, supports each other and achieve the goals that have been set. Clear communication with our beneficiaries allows us to better understand things from their perspective and truly give help that works.
I learnt the importance of being
disciplined and project timelines.
Working with real clients, I have to be accountable for all the work that we produce and deliver. I have experienced times when we did not deliver on our promised deadline and this hurt both our relationship with clients as well as our professional image.
REAL WORLD,
REAL DISCIPLINE
My FYP journey has forced me far out of my comfort zone as well as teaching me the value of perseverance. I have had the opportunity to interact with ex-offenders and the privilege to better understand their struggles with things we don’t commonly see. With this new experience and the network that I formed with the community and community advocates, I’m excited for the future and the opportunities I will have.
FRUITFUL JOURNEY
I have learnt about the difficulties of being a social enterprise. Like us,
ex-offenders are often heavily influenced by the people around them. They must first have a mentality that they want to want be a better person. There are no easy or simple fixed solutions to solve these problems. But it doesn’t mean these problems cannot be solved, just that it takes a whole lot of effort and people who care enough.
NO EASY FIXES
Growing out of our norms and getting down into action. As co-founders of a business, we had to grow out of our usual ways as a student and chase for a bigger purpose, not only for the grades. It isn’t simple to grow out from our ways to own and run a business it has taught me these three essential things: discipline, focus and communication.
GROWTH
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
I’m happy that they [Poppin! Events] give me this chance to listen to the talk with a reformed ex-offender. I learn a lot from there. They [Poppin! Events] also teach me some event skills which I can use in the future.
Developmental Opportunities
SWITCH Singapore
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The highlight of SWITCH SG for us was being able to watch entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of judges under a time limit. During this event, we learnt about different challenges that entrepreneurs in different industry will faced and how they managed to overcome them. In addition, we picked up some useful tips about starting a company during our networking session.
Coaching by 3 Elements Leadership
Leadership coaching sessions done by Justin Khoo. During the coaching, we understood the importance of teamwork and how teamwork is able to affect the work being produced. We learnt about the different stage of group development as well as learning to observe the strengths and weaknesses of each member in details.
Our Social Future
The event, Our Social Future, was extremely meaningful for us as we get to network and meet people from business sector, non-profit organisation, charity and social enterprise. During the event, we listened to established entrepreneurs/speakers and their thoughts regarding the social sector. We understood the importance of how social enterprise is able to contribute to future of the social sector.
