Every organisation has an origin story. Ours started with a question our own housekeeper asked our founder, James Quek — and it changed the direction of his life.

Before MyHelper, James spent years as the Executive Director of World Vision Singapore, overseeing poverty-alleviation projects across 16 countries. He’d also had an earlier career as a school teacher and a senior journalist with The Business Times. In all that time, one pattern kept repeating itself: women were the standard bearers of their families, and when circumstances became untenable, many had to leave home to work overseas — often as domestic helpers — just to give their families a chance at a better life.

Then one day, his own domestic helper asked him a simple question: “Why don’t you start a maid agency?” James had no experience in the industry. But the question stuck, and combined with everything he’d already seen in his years of humanitarian work, it planted a seed.

MyHelper was founded in 2013 with that seed in mind — to try and do things differently in an industry where the people with the least power, the helpers themselves, often carry the heaviest burden.

Over the years, the organisation evolved. Today MyHelper operates purely as a social enterprise — we are no longer in the business of matching helpers with employers. All of our energy now goes into the welfare, training and advocacy work this site describes: mentoring helpers through their first months in Singapore, organising outings and community, subsidising skills training, and educating employers on fair and dignified treatment of the women who work in their homes.

Recognised along the way

• Winner, inaugural Brands For Good Award, 2018
• Member, Freedom Business Alliance
• Member, Singapore Centre for Social Enterprise (raiSE)