Social Enterprise
SisterWorks
Interview | Part 1: Women
SisterWorks is a Social Enterprise founded in 2013, currently operating in Melbourne and Bendigo. SisterWorks supports Migrant Refugees and Asylum Seekers women (MRAW) in Victoria in improving their confidence, mental wellbeing, and economic participation. It paves pathways to education, employment, and entrepreneurship for the most vulnerable MRAW in Victoria. SisterWorks generates positive social return on investment (SROI) for women, volunteers, customers, and the Government. Every $1 invested generates approximately $2.40 revenue of social, economic, and cultural value (Annual Report, 2019). In this Part 1 of the interviews, the Chief Operating Officer (COO), Ifrin Fottock, talks to us about how women could access SisterWorks’ Learning and Development (L&D) programs.
Q1. Your target are women from Migrant, Refugee and Asylum Seeker backgrounds (MRAW) regardless of their cultural, religious, ethnic, or racial background and whether they are educated or uneducated. Does Sisterworks have any plan to include first nation ladies into its programs?
Ifrin: We want to welcome everyone including our first nation ladies. It is about capacity and priorities. We know that migrant, refugee, and asylum seeker women are our priority because they come to this country and have no one. It is a about priority and criticality of MRAW. Ultimately SisterWorks would love to empower all women. The door is open for our first nation ladies and they come in from time to time, but they leave soon after realising that this is not for them. MRAW face a lot of social barriers when they just arrive in Australia. The sooner we break these barriers the less they will be isolated or depressed. SisterWorks is an early intervention program
Q2. What level of English does a woman need to enrol Sisterworks’ activities?
Ifrin: There is no pre-requisite about the level of English that a sister needs to access our programs. Some women who come here could only say ‘Hello’ and ‘Thank you’. However, we conduct friendly interviews and digital assessment when a woman contacts SisterWorks to determine her capacity level and the learning speed. Women with basic English could have a shorter journey in our L&D. (Through these assessments, we determine their level of literacy and English language as well technology knowledge because everything is on Apps these days.) So, being able to navigate technology through different gadgets is crucial. SisterWorks’ L&D consists of three programs – vocational (such as sewing, cooking) – entrepreneurship and digital learning. For women with little English, we have ‘Learning by doing’, learning useful English language related to the activity they are doing. We are not training them to be Shakespeare, but we just want them to relate the language to their activity.
Q3. Do you have interpreting services for women with no or little English language?
Ifrin: We use ‘WhatsApp’ to communicate our L&D programs. We show them basic skills on how to download an Apps, and digitally communicate. We also encourage them to give us a call if they cannot type and we verbally inform women about various activities in our L&D programs. For instance, Fridays we run wellbeing classes and with COVID-19, we invite women to participate via webinar.
Q4. Your annual report states that for every dollar ($1) a woman invests, she gets $2.40, is that right? How long does it take for a woman to develop a label for a product and start earning income?
Ifrin: It depends on their capacity to learn. Some learn faster, some might be a bit slow. For instance, a sister who has some basic sewing skills will pass the first level and move to the next one and eventually start making some of our products but not all, learn at the same pace. She then moves into an intermediate program whereby she could make some products such as a bread’s bag, lunch box and learning about other fabrics, not just cotton. If they can make say a face mask in an hour and it is cut to precision, they are rewarded and from there, they can only get better and better, making 2 to 3 masks in an hour. The economic empowerment kicks in, it is a learning process requiring practice and hard work. We believe in economic empowerment through our L&D program. Women would probably not be able to buy a house with what they earn, but they have some discretionary income enabling them to take their kids to movies or McDonalds. We also have another category of sisters who earn good income based on their high-performance level. We do not force them but encourage them to do their best. You are only going to scare them away if forcing them. Another category are sisters who are determined to work hard and put the product in the shop within a short period of time.
Q5. Joumana1’story is impressive! How does a woman sustain her start-up business to survive once she graduates from your program?
Ifrin: We try to equip women with the necessary skills to start their business while they are learning with us. We have many sisters who are running online businesses successfully. We have an entrepreneurship program, and we understand that not everybody is creative or has some artistic blood in them. For this category of women, we support them to create labels for our products. If they chose to sell their products in our shops, they are then fitted for the entrepreneurship program. They learn multidimensional skills such as sewing, crochet and jewellery making, building up their artistic skills. Our L&D programs range from levels 1 to 3. When a woman reaches level 3, she then progresses to the category of entrepreneurship if she wishes to do so. We assign her with a designer and a business mentor helping her to align her products with current market demand and environmental values. Our mentoring program assists sisters in cost analysis and price management. We also give them an opportunity to sell their products through our stores or other channels. Products that do not sell within six months are deemed ‘False hope’ and discontinued. While women are in our programs, we help them as much as we can with practical knowledge in setting up a business and marketing. For instance, when a woman is ready to go online, we assist her in taking some good pictures of her products and marketing them. You will need to take some risk to go out there and work hard to be successful. In addition, we also partner with Brotherhood of St Laurence and encourage our cohort to participate in an 8-week business course run by Brotherhood of St Laurence.
Q6. Can you tell me about these women, what is the average length of time they have been living in Australia and what do you think motivates them to use your programs.
Ifrin: It varies, we have sisters who have been living in Australia for the last 10 years, other have just arrived, meaning from a few days to 10 years and over. The needs of migrant, refugee and asylum seeker women are not solved by the length of time they have been living in Australia. We therefore welcome everyone regardless of how long they have been in Australia
Q7. I know that partnering with other support organisations is useful as some women have complex issues that are outside the scope of your business but can only be resolved by specialised organisations such as Safe-Steps, Beyond Blue etc… Do you have stakeholders’ engagement program to refer women in such situation and vice-versa? How do people know about your programs?
Ifrin: We use different means. We partner with organisations in line with our mission statement. For instance, Asylum Seekers Resources Centre is our partner and refers a lot of our clients to us. We work collaboratively with Social Workers, Carrington Adult Education Centre, Fitzroy Learning Centre to find comprehensive solutions to women’s issues. Furthermore, word of mouth as well as other sisters bring along their friends to our programs.
We were planning to set up a satellite SisterWorks in Dandenong area, but we abandoned the plan due to the high cost for setting up. The other option is to cohabite with other organisations. Dandenong is now a mobile satellite hub where we run cooking classes. We are trying to partner with Springvale Learning Centre, which already has the targeted community we need. From now on, this is the model we are adopting, a mobile L&D program in partnership with local organisations using local volunteers to run our programs. We appreciate the City of Greater Dandenong which provided us with some grant support to run cooking activities. To be continued …
References
1″ SisterWorks, 2019, Annual Report FY 2018-2019, viewed 10th May 2020,
https://sisterworks.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/SisterWorks-annualreport2018-19e-1.pdf
SisterWorks
Interview | Part 2: BUILDING CAPACITIES – LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
Q1. Competent human capital is one of the driving forces required to achieve success whether in a for-profit or Not-for Profit organisation. I am just wondering whether your HRD plan includes partnering with tertiary institutions such as Polytechnics, Kangan etc…to assist in staff learning and development, given that your plan is to expand into other rural areas in Victoria as well as internationally?
Ifrin: We have a program called social mentoring or body. For sisters with specific issues such as custody battles, family violence etc. We have a communal lunch where these issues can be discussed. A social body is assigned to the sister. This is just somebody to help them navigate the system, not necessary a social worker or a lawyer, to explore the options for housing, support, and legal information. A sister with underlying issues cannot learn properly because she is worrying whether this is the last time she will see her children, or where they are going to sleep.
Q2 Most of your staff come from internally, which is an excellent way to train and empower other women as they understand what their clients/students are going through b/c they have walked in their shoes. In your strategic plan, does your HRD incorporate building competencies on managing a succession plan by the Executives to avoid loss when unpredictable circumstances occur, resulting in losing some of your ‘Type A’ performers at top Management level?
Ifrin: We recruit them as volunteers. They are not required to come to SW, our social coordinator interviews them and provides them with an induction on building rapport with clients, and on empathy and confidentiality. We encourage the social body to meet women outside SW to give women a space and confidentiality
LEADERSHIP STYLE
Q1. According to your latest Annual report 2018-2019, your net profit decreased from approx. $65,000 to $37,000 last financial year; can you please explain what caused this decline?
Ifrin: This is an interesting question. At SW we have different people coming from different backgrounds, with different values. A leader needs to adapt. Using ‘Control & Command’ does not always enhance performance. At SW we use ‘Leadership Style mix’. For instance, in our production unit a stern leadership is required to meet market demand and impart time management skills, best quality production and work ethics and efficiency. In our training unit leadership with social capability is crucial to build better rapport with participants. We strive to place the ‘Right leader’ in the ‘Right place’ rather than having ‘One size fit all’ leader.
Q2. How do you recruit people into the production unit, when a sister already has vocational skills, such sewing from their own home country?
Ifrin: We conduct an assessment to determine the level of learning that a sister needs. We have beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels in sewing. Sometimes it depends on what they would like to do. We can train them in production and product making to further start working in our production unit. To be continued …
Please stay tune for Part 4 on this amazing organisation, in our next edition. Meanwhile, if you would
like to get in touch with Sisterworks, please visit https://sisterworks.org.au/
SisterWorks is a Social Enterprise, which was founded in 2013, and is currently operating in Melbourne and Bendigo. SisterWorks supports Migrant Refugees and Asylum Seeker women (MRAW) in Victoria to improve their confidence, mental wellbeing, sense of belonging and economic participation. It paves pathways to education, employment, and entrepreneurship for the most vulnerable MRAW in Victoria. SisterWorks generates a positive social return on investment (SROI) for women,volunteers, customers, and the Government. Every $1 invested generates approximately $2.40 of social, economic, and cultural value (Annual Report,2019). In this Part 4 of the interviews, the Chief Operating Officer (COO), Ifrin Fottock, talks to us about the business performance.
PART 4 BUSINESS PERFORMANCE
Q1. According to your latest Annual report for 2018-2019, your net profit decreased from approx. $65,000 to $37,000 in 2018-2019; can you please explain what caused this decline?
Ifrin: It is a combination of a lot of factors. The unpredictable decrease in funding. We can control the cost in many ways, such as labour cost which is mitigated by voluntary work and donated material used in product redevelopment. But the revenue is out of our control especially when ongoing funding is cut off, leading to a decline in profit during the last financial year. The other factor is that we are a NFP (not-for-profit) organisation, and our focus is ‘Break Even’. Our wholesale to IGA enables an increase in productivity with a huge discount to we offer them but 50% of profitability is re-awarded to sisters while we are putting our names out there.
Q2. Your wholesaling products to IGA increased to about 60% and 11% sales, according to you report. You have now joined hands with Australia Post. How do you think your wholesale performance will go with the current impact of COVID-19, which is negatively affecting so many businesses?
Ifrin: COVID-19 has badly impacted us. We only just opened 4 weeks ago and are operating for limited hours. The pandemic led to cancellation of our markets andspeaking engagement. There is a chain reaction caused by uncertainty. When wholesales were impacted our supply stopped. Fortunately, not so bad in terms of food, whether there is COVID-19 or not people still need to eat. Other goods have a higher elasticity of demand. At the moment, we are surviving on making facemasks, but we are not sure for how long.
Q3. You have partnered with the UN on Global Second Chance Education, BHP…, Congratulations indeed! Your partnership with the UN is to roll out SisterWorks globally in developing countries and where there is high concentration of MRA women in developed countries, like Australia. That is an excellent vision! You have already started piloting this project in Cameroun, Jordan, Mexico, Chile. How is that all going, say in Cameroon and Mexico? How do you select countries to pilot SW? Can you talk about how SisterWorks participates in Global Second Chance Education?
Ifrin: SW and UN are piloting SW projects in both developed and developing countries ascertaining what works well in both areas. In developing countries, they adapt the project to meet the most pressing women’s issues. For instance, in Mexico, where previously women were often put on the peripheral of the society, under the umbrella of Second Chance Education SW mobilises people to incorporate women as an integral part of the society. They are using the template of SW about
mentoring for other programs in other countries.
Q4 Looking forwards, you have set some good goals to achieve by 2021, meaning next financial year. Among other goals, these are:
▪ Engaging 2000 women into employment & education pathways,
▪ establishing 4 Empowerment Hubs in Vic, increase sales target from 50% to 80% to be selfsustainable.
How do you think you will fair in meeting these goals given that the current pandemic COVID-19 is crippling so many businesses?
Ifrin: We are nervous, but we are learning a lot to be as agile as we can. We are now running on-line vocational courses. It was a bit messy in the beginning, but the positive side is that participation is higher, women don’t need to leave their houses to learn. Traditionally we were running a class of 6-8 people with online we can reach out to more sisters. We are now planning to invest in online trainings.
Q5. A lot of people lost their jobs during this pandemic, raising the level of unemployment in Victoria and Australia as a whole. When everything reopens do you think you will have enough capacity to cope as more women might want to use your services to learn new skills or refresh their skills? How do you think you will cope with this increase in demand for your services?
Ifrin: That is a very good question and ‘Yes we can’. Online delivery course increases our training capacity as it accommodates more participants. It might not be as efficient as face-to-face learning but ‘you still learn’. We have also started to provide mobile service to areas in partnerships with local organisations. Mobile service is cheaper because all it requires is sending our coordinator with a van to run programs while all necessary equipment (Venue, chairs, kitchen etc..) is supplied by a local partner’s organisation. In addition, the targeted community is based in the area and are also clients of the partner’s organisation. We can run one program in the morning and another one in the afternoon.
ENDING INTERVIEW
Q1 As a Social Enterprise how would you like organisations from all sectors (Government, NGOs and Private) to support Sisterworks in sustaining your amazing work that you have been doing?
Ifrin: The challenges that we face is the uncertainty in funding. We would like to be 100% selfsustainable if not at least increasing the level of self-sustainable. Currently we are about 60% self funded through revenue generated through our social enterprise and the other source of funding comes from regular donors. But this is still not enough because sometimes our aspirations do not match the capacity to carry out projects that we would like to implement. The community can help us by buying our products, and sharing a word about what we do. The government or other philanthropic organisations could make easier and simpler funding applications and acquittal reports because our mission is to create value rather than spending so much time in writing funding reports.
Q2 What would you like to tell the women out there from Migrant, Refugee and Asylum seekerbackgrounds who are struggling in isolation?
Ifrin: Come out, you are welcome to SW any day, any time. Please do not stay home alone, step out of your house and in a community, SW is a community. There is no obligation for you to join our program but come out and eliminate your boredom, isolation, mitigate your depression, have a break from nagging husband, screaming children. Come and join our creative and wellbeing classes.
If you would like to get in touch with Sisterworks, please visit https://sisterworks.org.au
This interview was conducted on 26 June 2020.