Walking along the prosperous streets of Singapore, you often encounter people who have travelled a long way to find work. Annie Cabansag is one of them - a Filipina migrant domestic worker. She has been working here for nearly 2 decades.

Her concern for her family’s welfare is what drove Annie to find work outside of the Philippines: “My father suddenly died, and my mother, the sole breadwinner, also got sick...Because I finished college, I also wanted my sister to graduate…. That is what pushed me to migrate to Singapore.”

When asked about her future plans, Annie hesitated: “I have been working here for 18 years, yet I still don’t have enough savings to go home for good.”

“Initially, the money I sent home was for my sister’s college education. She graduated but unfortunately could not work. She got pregnant and had a baby. Her child’s financial needs became my responsibility too...”Annie’s eyes welled up in tears. After supported her sister’s education, now it is her niece who she is putting through school.

Annie is not alone, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, there were an estimated 232 million international migrants across the world in 2013 - out of which 48 per cent were women. During the same year, according to the World Bank, migrants sent home USD 414 billion in remittances.
The money that they send home are largely used for immediate consumption. Little is allocated towards savings and investments. Without sufficient savings and investments, most migrant workers are compelled to stay abroad and continue working. Those who decide to go home often end up in the same financial situation they were in before they went abroad. We have heard migrant families describe this phenomenon as the rags-to-riches-to-rags cycle.

To pull them out of this vicious cycle, the ILO’s Canadian-funded ASEAN TRIANGLE Project (ATP) were motivated to create a financial education course for migrant workers and their families to step out of their boxes and see the big picture of their migration experience, to help them determine their short and long-term life goals, and to guide them to convert those goals into action plans.

In 2014, ATP partnered with Atikha Overseas Workers and Communities Initiative, a civil society organization based in the Philippines that provide financial literacy training to migrant workers in destination countries and the families they have left behind.

We developed a financial education course for ASEAN migrant workers. The curriculum includes a Trainers’ Guide which provides facilitators with step-by-step instructions on how to conduct the course, and a Financial Planner which is a workbook that participants use during the training. The course encourages migrant workers to engage their whole family in goal setting, budgeting, saving, investing and addressing issues that drain their resources.

The course was piloted in Singapore where ILO and Atikha trained the staff of several civil society organizations as well as representatives from the Indonesian Embassy. The objective was to capacitate these organizations so they may regularly conduct the course to migrant workers in Singapore.

Annie was among the first recipients of the course. During a small ceremony held to recognize the efforts of the Singaporean implementing partners, Annie was among the migrant workers who happily spoke about their experience:

“During and after the financial literacy class, I started talking to my family about my plans and limits on their allowances. At first they were… so reluctant. In the end, with so much persuasion and explanation and prayers, they supported me.”

Sisi Sukiato, Director of the Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics, one of the implementing organizations in Singapore, shared the results of the trainings they have conducted: “We can see the results of the course [and how migrant workers have] benefitted from it. We can see that they are more conscious about their finances now.”

The efforts of our Singaporean partners to provide this course on a regular basis shows their determination to help migrant workers. “We want each and every migrant who goes abroad to work to be able to plan [and] reach their goals in their finances, so that they can have a better future,” said Timothy Karl, Executive Director of the Archdiocesan Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People.

We hope to reach more workers and their families. We invite other organizations to replicate this course and ask migrant workers who have benefitted from the training to encourage others to improve their financial literacy. Thanks to the course, Annie has made a sound financial plan, and should now be able to go home soon. As Annie says in our documentary:

“Ask yourself until when do you plan on working abroad. In my case, I will be able to go home in 2 to 3 years and be with my family. If you want to be with your children, your spouse, your family, you should learn financial literacy. It helped me. It will help you too.”