Her Challenges
We met Amira last week where she generously shared her experiences as a full time student who is also working part time. Amira, 18, only started working when she was 16 to support herself and her family in the midst of financial instability. While her biological parents are divorced, Amira is living with her mom and stepdad as well as three other younger siblings.
Despite having less than two years of experience in part time work, Amira informed us about her exposure to three different industries i.e. education, food and beverages (F&B) and retail. Amira confessed that she find it extremely hard to balance and juggle work, CCA and studies in a relatively new school environment after she finished her N levels. Occasionally, Amira uses her part time salary to help cover school expenses and bills when her parents couldn’t. When we asked about any financial assistance she received, Amira said she failed in getting financial aid from school due to administrative issues as well as her lack of knowledge about assistance from external organizations.
Studying business services and having an interest in it, Amira acknowledged that her part-time job experiences have helped her to understand and gain insight about business and finance in Singapore. Nonetheless, Amira ideally prefer to focus primarily on her studies - without having to work - to achieve good results and further her studies to polytechnic - in the area of her interest.
Amira’s circumstances are one of many but it was obvious to us that more help and attention should be channeled to fellow underprivileged students like her; giving them the agency to help us help her and make it less of a burden to them in pursuing their dreams.
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