Returning dignity to the disadvantaged and disabled through employment support

Returning dignity to the disadvantaged and disabled through employment support

Project Dignity is a social enterprise that champions social empowerment through vocation and passion for food. With an integrated platform comprising of a full-fledged hawker food centre, culinary training centre, social outreach programs and up-cycled book stalls, we drive social impact by empowering people with disabilities and disadvantaged with gainful employment and sustainable livelihoods. Our mission is to "to build and return dignity to the disabled and disadvantaged (PWDs) through vocation with passion”.

On weekdays, we also provide free meals to the community of working poor and engage elderly from nursing homes by taking them for city tour and lunch at our Dignity Kitchen. Since inception, we have successfully trained and placed more than 3,000 PWDs into gainful employment and have provided more than one million meal boxes to the poor.

75% of Project Dignity’s staff also face social, mental, intellectual, and physical challenges in their day-to-day lives. Leading by example, we aim to set the exemplary standard for other companies to strive towards a more inclusive environment for PWDs. We also encourage tri-partisan collaboration with corporations, institutions, and members of the public to pool resources and bring about positive change through corporate social activities that give back to the community.

Innovating to push boundaries of training and employment

Project Dignity’s proprietary training program and success stories demonstrate our determination to consistently innovate and push the boundaries of “impossible”. Since our launch in 2010 with one hawker stall and a small training centre, we have now expanded into various new divisions, including:

• Dignity Avatar – aims to create jobs for home-bound paraplegic person by enabling them to remotely control robots via their online avatar, 
• Dignity Farm – a hydroponic farm meant for cultivating sustainable farming and facilitate training on urban farming methods for the intellectually-challenged youth,
• Dignity Wheel – a wheelchair food delivery service for the wheelchair bound who struggle to secure conventional employment that requires mobility skills,
• Dignity Kitchenette- an entrepreneurship training in a café managed by trainees with mental ailments with interests in running their own F&B outlets in the future,
• Dignity Mama – book stall manned by differently-abled youths with the help of their mothers / caregivers with flexible working hours that allow mothers/caregiver to adjust their schedules, balance their family with work while allowing the youths to gain entrepreneurial experience and earn a sustainable living.

All these ventures are aimed at strengthening our capabilities in skills training, placement, and employment for the PWDs within the F&B and retail sectors. Through our innovative training methods and comprehensive impact assessments, we enable improved learning outcomes and increased employability. Our PWDs gain skills, knowledge and confidence leading them to lead independent lives. Our programmes promote equal job opportunities and break down barriers to gainful employment, which in turn fosters social inclusion and equality and reduces discrimination.

With training and employment opportunities, PWDs are also able to integrate with the community better, which in turn enhances social cohesion, breaks down stereotypes and promotes positive interactions between people with and without disabilities.

Our work further challenges societal stigma and misconceptions surrounding disabilities, and encourages greater acceptance and understanding towards all individuals in society. PWDs in our programme may also become a source of inspiration to others facing similar circumstances.

Overcoming crises to protect the vulnerable

With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, we rapidly faced falling revenue, as our revenue-generating corporate events and culinary classes were cancelled, and our hawker centre saw a sharp fall in patronage. We also observed a rapid increase in retrenchment of elderly and PWDs, some of them our past graduates that we took back to work in Project Dignity.

As hundreds of PWDs (and their families) were worried about their unemployment and future, I knew that I could not close the business, especially since employment opportunities were scarce. Hundreds of those in line for our Train and Place programme then would not have the opportunity to regain their dignity and job prospects. I took a bank loan in an attempt to ride out the crisis, and reassured my staff that there would be “no pay cut, no retrenchment and most important we must all stay together to overcome this crisis”. We persevered through the crisis, in spite of its ups and downs, and even managed to expand in the process. Prior to the start of the pandemic, the staff strength of Project Dignity was 48 staff but now in the beginning of 2023, the staff strength of Project Dignity is 178 employees.

A group of PWDs graduating from one of our programmes

Investing in targeted training for greater PWD wellbeing

As a firm believer in sustainability, Project Dignity constantly searches for innovative ways to invest in the training and development of PWDs such as –

• Implementing targeted training techniques that address the specific needs and challenges faced by PWDS to ensure their employability – evidenced by our development of training curriculum in urban farming for autistic persons to be employed in the agricultural sector. This sector is expanding in line with the government’s initiatives to sustainably produce 30% of the country’s agricultural needs
• Encouraging and ensuring accessibility measures are in place when placing our PWDs in employment of employers
• Constantly improving our metrics and indicators to track the progress and impact of the PWDs in terms of their wellbeing and progress
• Collaboration with disability organisations, advocacy groups, the government, and local communities to achieve greater impact and more sustainable outcome for all PWDs
• Train more PWDs as a potential pool of workforce
• Replicate the social enterprise concept across the regions