Building communities of care in youth climate philanthropy: Bea Baquero and Beverley Choo '22

Bea Baquero (she/her) and Beverley Choo (she/her) are the co-founders of GreenCheck (@greencheck.earth), a donation and community-building platform led by youth allies around the world to enable grassroots climate action across Latin America and Southeast Asia. They are both from the Class of 2022 and majored in Global Affairs and Environmental Studies respectively.

Bea amd Beverley representing Fossil Free Yale-NUS at the Conscious Festival 2021.

Aleithia: Hi Beatrice and Beverley, I'm excited for our conversation about GreenCheck's work today! How about starting with introductions?

Beatrice Baquero: I’m Beatrice. I go by she/her pronouns. I’m from the Class of 2022, and majored in Global Affairs, and minored in Environmental Studies (ES). I usually say I’m a long-lost ES student at heart.

Beverley Choo: I’m Beverley. My friends call me Bev. I use she/her pronouns. I’m also from the Class of 2022, but took a semester off and graduated a semester after Bea, in December 2022. I majored in Environmental Studies.

Aleithia: Thank you for speaking with YNPACt today! Could you tell us more about GreenCheck and how you got started in climate philanthropy?

Beverley: In 2020, I was going through a phase of massive climate anxiety. I kept feeling like I wasn't doing enough, which is something many climate activists struggle with. When I found out about the Global University Climate Forum’s call for projects, I got a few people together – including Bea, Shikhar (‘20), and Josh and Ben from Yale – to start brainstorming. After several months of discussions and talking to climate activists, we decided to focus on redirecting resources to community-led climate action groups in most-affected regions. GreenCheck was thus born out of my own existential crisis, as well as our observations of a real need and gap.

Singapore-based GreenCheck team members meet up for a picnic at Botanic Gardens!

Beatrice: To complement what Bev said, we had both been pretty active in green groups on campus. And as youths, we faced problems fundraising as we often don’t get taken seriously because of our age. We also saw a funding gap in the climate space, especially in Latin America and Southeast Asia, where we are from. I’m from Colombia, and Bev is from Singapore. So it made sense to start where we come from, and where we have bigger networks.

GreenCheck now supports six Partner groups which are youth-led, community-led grassroots organisations from Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. We also work with Volunteers, and for some of them, this organisation has been their entry point to getting involved with climate work.

The third group of people we work with are Supporters. Our motto is: anyone can contribute. From financial resources to skills or network opportunities, everyone has a part to play. GreenCheck wants to be a hub to take people on a journey to learn where they fit into the climate crisis, and how they can contribute beyond a one-time monetary donation.

Aleithia: What gaps were you seeing in climate action and traditional funding that led to focus on community-led action, in most-affected regions? How does GreenCheck work differently from traditional philanthropy?

Beverley: A lot of philanthropy and charity work is rooted in colonial biases and practices, such as the “saviour complex”. By viewing communities that you try to help as victims in need of saving, you’re infantilising these communities. When funders and non-profits come in, they don’t often work with communities to implement solutions, but will prescribe and implement their own ideas. What about asking the communities, “Hey, what do you actually need?”

Donor relationships are also extremely imbalanced, which often entail a one-way allocation of resources, and then demanding to see results. Donors want to see numbers and reports, which aren't always representative the long-term sustainability of the solution they invested in.

Another issue is dependency created by funders, which further entrenches the power imbalance between funders and communities. Charities and philanthropies should work towards sustainable solutions that communities can sustain themselves so they can have ownership over the projects.

We thought a lot about power dynamics, and how resources can be exchanged between Partners and Supporters. Supporters don’t just donate money. They have a lot to learn from Partners, in terms of wisdom, knowledge and resources.

The second gap is the need for more people to get involved. We want to provide an easy entry point to anyone remotely interested in climate work. We have a very flexible volunteer programme that allows anyone from any background to start. Among our Volunteers, we have economists, engineerings, people in finance, architects and so on, all contributing their skillsets and knowledge to GreenCheck.

Anyone with any kind of resource can become a Supporter. If money is your main resource, you can donate. You can also contribute translation skills if you speak multiple languages, or lend your graphic design skills to a Partner.

What do we try to do when we talk about decolonizing philanthropy? ... We questioned our own positionality in the climate crisis. What privileges do we have? How do we come in and get involved in a way that does not replicate these exploitative practices?

Beatrice: To expand on the question – What do we try to do when we talk about decolonizing philanthropy? – we started with a lot of introspection, and asking ourselves questions of power, money, and how to work with groups that live in completely different contexts from us.

We ourselves aren't positioned to do the work that our Partners are doing in the Philippines, or in Colombia. So we questioned our own positionality in the climate crisis. What privileges do we have? How do we come in and get involved in a way that does not replicate these exploitative practices? Colonisation was about exploiting people, exploiting natural resources and oppressing especially Indigenous people, people of color and Black communities.

When we work with our Partners, we recognise them as equals and ask them, “What do you want? What is the right thing to do?” Our Partners have the knowledge and the solutions. They know what is best in their context. And we try to support them as best as we can, and create the conditions for change with the Supporters. When we work with our Partners, it's really an exercise of active listening, which is something people don't do enough. Very often, people do not listen to the communities that are going through so much loss and pain right now, because of the impact of the climate crisis.

Another important point is that our partnerships are long term, which is something a lot of development organisations do not do. We want to stay with our Partners and support them in the long term because we believe in their cause, and want to grow together. Our support is not project-based but for their work as a whole. We include our Partners in a lot of our decision-making processes. And again we're fully transparent about our work, how we use the funds, and we even decide together, if we can redistribute our internal funds to the Partners who are more in need of funds and have urgent projects, for example.

We’ve also worked with our Partners to design the Garden Methodology, which is our impact measurement methodology. It’s designed to be flexible, to take into account the contexts they live and work in.

Aleithia: Speaking of impact measurement, what are the kinds of knowledge that you value in your impact measurement framework, the Garden Methodology? What do you think GreenCheck's Supporters want to see?

Beatrice: We've thought a lot about what donors usually expect. That’s part of why we developed the Garden Methodology – to have the credibility that people are always looking for. Supporters do have expectations when they donate, and we want to be accountable with how we're using their support, so we offer regular updates, access to trainings and workshops with the GreenCheck team, and spaces where Supporters can speak with Partners. All of this goes beyond the typical donor-donee relationship. We really want to build communities of understanding, learning and care.

I think "care" is such an important word: we're all struggling and suffering so much, and I think we all just need a bit more care for ourselves and each other. This year, we're going to focus on engaging and connecting Supporters and Partners, and giving them more spaces for connection. We haven't been doing that too well yet, if I'm honest. But this is the year where we're starting to really foster these relationships deeply. So we're excited!

As for how the Garden Methodology was developed, as a team, we thought about what we wanted to do with the existing tools and criteria being used. We do need to report numbers, but people also want to hear stories and better understand our efforts in community building and decolonising philanthropy are. We’re trying to find ways to tell stories of impact differently, using different "languages", and new ways to measure impact.

We’ve been asking our Partners, “What came out of the event we did with you? What came out of this campaign we helped to create and design? Do you see that as impact?” The Partners decide what is impactful and if there's progress being made.

Our methodology involves the process of setting goals, though concrete goals don’t always work in the activism space, because what you do changes on a daily basis, based on things that happen and evolving crisis situations. If we can’t set concrete goals, we find different ways of tracking progress and measuring what we do. We have a lot of feedback mechanisms and calls with our Partners. We try to understand their needs as much as we can, and that guides our work and our input. Again, it's a lot of active listening and letting them decide what impact is.

Beverley: The main thing that makes our impact methodology different and unique is that we don't have a singular framework. We do have the traditional indicators (e.g. how many people showed up to an event) that we do measure. But we don't rely on a singular framework that applies to all Partners. For example, we have partners working in permaculture, or who do pro-bono litigation -- we can't measure impact the same way for both of them, so we work with them do develop an impact framework that is unique to them.

Gardening requires a lot of care, listening to the land, understanding, and learning from the land. The land changes, new things can pop up unexpectedly. Plants can and will die, but others flourish. As with a garden, our Partners are working in very dynamic spaces. You might say that the impact is the garden we create together, which can look very different at different points in time.

Beatrice: The whole document is based around the metaphor of a garden. Gardening requires a lot of care, listening to the land, understanding, and learning from the land. The land changes, new things can pop up unexpectedly. Plants can and will die, but others flourish. As with a garden, our Partners are working in very dynamic spaces. You might say that the impact is the garden we create together, which can look very different at different points in time

Aleithia: That’s beautiful. I was wondering if you could give an example of how you have developed the Garden Methodology with one of your partners? What is the process of determining what impact is to them, and what might we overlook as impact, if we were simply relying at the typical quantitative indicators?

Beatrice: One thing to clarify is that our Partners achieve a lot of impact in their own right, and the Garden Methodology is used to evaluate how we – GreenCheck – are collaborating with them. Our collaborations have included content design, translation, connecting them with new volunteers, and so on. This summer, one of our volunteers will be interning with a Partner and that’s really exciting! This is the kind of relationship we want to be building between our Partners and volunteers.

We have connected Partners with various networks and contacts, based on what they need, such as journalists, marketers, or people working in technology. We connected a Partner to an artist, to strengthen the partners’ brand, and we heard that they are now collaborating for an eco-festival!

It’s also worth mentioning that the impact is not immediate, and as we mentioned earlier, we think long-term when working with Partners. This means that we’re not tracking numbers month-to-month.

Beverley: Going back to what donors might expect to see, and what we count as impact: with the Partner and artist we put in touch, one might expect to see them put out a product together. A typical donor tracking impact might ask, “How many products did you sell? How much money did that product make?” But we consider the partnership itself as impact. The fact that they have built that relationship and decided to collaborate constitutes impact, because it contributes to building a larger ecosystem within the climate justice community. Creating more tight-knit relationships counts as impact, and that is something that other donors might not have taken into account.

Aleithia Low: Thank you for sharing that! Is there anything else you wanted our readers to know?

Beverley: We are looking for Volunteers and Supporters!

Beatrice: We're also trying to make ourselves really accessible as a team and as an organisation. We hold virtual office hours that we call “GreenCheck-ins.” Come to those and talk to a team member. We’re putting out so many initiatives for people to get engaged, because we know people want to be engaged.

We’d love for people to take the first step of reaching out to say, “Hey, I like your work. How can I get engaged?” That’s a big step for us, and we love receiving messages like that, because part of what we’re doing is to get more people involved in climate crisis work.

Another initiative we have is the “(Un)Learning Series” where we make academic research more accessible by reading, digesting and turning long papers into social media posts. A lot of academic research is not accessible or inclusive, and we wanted that knowledge to be shared, especially with our followers, who are mostly students and youths. So that is something else people get involved with: get in touch with us to share your papers or research so that we can share it with others!

“For queer people, just embracing the state of being is enough to be seen”: Minsoo Bae ’20

Minsoo Bae (she/they) is an Anthropology major from Yale-NUS College’s Class of 2020. Outside of her corporate day job, she curates spaces that sit at the intersection of queerness, art and the essence of being.

Photo by Karolina Jackowska

Thank you for taking the time! Can you describe the work you do outside of your day job?

There are four main things I dabble in. The first is a queer life drawing circle, which I have been running with Farheen (they/them) for maybe 7 months. The second is making zines and selling them together at zine fairs. Third is Bussy Temple, which is a series of queer nightlife spaces run by queer creatives. And last is a personal project, where I draw on queer people and photograph them.

Zines

The queer life drawing sessions sound so interesting. Can you share more about that?

It's a bimonthly session with queer models and queer drawers. For a lot of the models, it’s their first time doing life modeling. Farheen and I would set up a practice session to get people comfortable, discuss their boundaries, and let them know what to expect. We ask them to come up with a theme and playlist if they want, so they can communicate their essence and share how they want to be seen. Some examples of themes in the past have included "soil", where we saw drawers respond by depicting the body in nature-y forms.

My favourite part is at the end when we ask people to place their favourite drawing in the middle of the room. We give people pieces of paper to write notes about what they enjoy about other's drawings. It’s such a cute time, seeing people ferociously write compliments and make connections with others over how they resonated to their art. It's also really lovely to see people meet in this space and become friends… or more…

I’ve developed so much as an artist by growing with this community and learning from other people’s styles.

Queer life drawing circle

What was the inspiration behind these initiatives, and how do you see them interacting with each other?

Bussy Temple came from a desire to give queer folks a safe space to party and present themselves however they want, especially gender-wise. I knew this was important, because personally, when I’m with my queer friends in nightlife spaces with a lot of straight men, we feel our bodies tense up. There's a fear of safety, of being respected for who we are.

Bussy Temple

For queer life drawing, we wanted to create a space where people can just be in the presence of others without necessarily talking, especially since some participants told us later that the space also filled their desire to meet queer folks in quieter, sober settings.

We want to encourage people to stretch how we see ourselves and each other, and try in different ways to capture an essence. For the queer models, we want to create a space where they can be embodied and seen for who they are, without being a spectacle. And for the drawers, a place to breathe and experiment, and to see queer kins deeply.

Farheen put it beautifully when they said: "There's a sense that we are queering life drawing - bending the boundaries of what it means to depict a body. Seeing beyond seeing. There is something really special when queer eyes see and depict queer people - I think we are all inclined to see in really beautiful ways, and this has felt like a space to celebrating queer seeing."

It feels like you’re saying there’s a way for people to be seen, that’s distinct from them expressing themselves with words. Does that not go against the thinking today that precisely because someone has been dehumanized, they should be given the chance to define themselves?

I think the desire to define ourselves comes from a place of not being understood by others. Gender does not exist in a vacuum - it’s a shared language that we use to interpret the world. That’s why queer people seek out words and definitions to explain themselves to non-queer people.

Farheen and I run some of these initiatives under an art duo called singmoolsung, which means ‘the quality of being a plant’ in Korean. The philosophy behind the duo is this - plants are not interested in self-definition, only constant self-transformation. For us, it’s a comfort with the state of being, a state that we recognize is constantly growing and in flux, that’s not dependent on language or rigid definitions.

Definition is for non-queer people. We define ourselves to non-queer people so they can understand us. Among other queers, I feel like there's no need to explain. Embracing the state of being, and all the fluidity that comes with that, is enough to be seen.

Would you describe yourself as an activist?

I can see why someone may say that because we're creating alternative spaces for queer folks. But no lah, I wouldn’t. I don’t know if these initiatives deserve that title - I’m not making systemic change, you know. I’m just letting people chill. I still feel like I know so little about how to create change at scale, especially in Singapore.

As an Anthropology major, my education gave me the tools to critique existing systems. But that showed me how easy it is be prescriptive, and not realize how an initiative could play out given the nuances of each person's lived experiences. That made me afraid of starting any large-scale programs that might lead to unintended consequences. I think about how Audrey Tang, Taiwan's Minister of Digital Affairs, talks about Taoist philosophy and how she wants to use her position to be a conduit for people. It's something I want to work up to, but I have a lot to learn.

So how would you describe the Theory of Change behind your work?

I wrote my capstone on the psychedelic trance music scene in Singapore, using the theory of politics of everyday resistance. The theory is about the political potential of a contained temporary space governed by utopian rules, outside of neoliberal logic. It's not a politics of change, but of survival.

I have my doubts because I know it sounds grandiose and even complacent. But it's something. And I hope that people take a piece of that experience with them outside of that space. I hope it gives them more comfort to inhabit new ways of being in their everyday life, something that's set up to be hostile to the core of who they are.

That’s why I decided to focus these initiatives on my everyday interpersonal relationships. My hope is that living out my values would become second nature and one day, allow me to feel comfortable moving towards systemic change.

It may not cause wholesale systemic change; it just gives us a way of surviving the cold metropolis.

And so what’s next for you all - is there a desire to scale these initiatives?

Bussy Temple will host our first international line up rave in March to celebrate our one-year anniversary. It will feature DJing and other creative forms from a few international artists.

For queer life drawing, my nightmare would be if it evolved into a 100-people event. The key is that it’s intimate, and change is slow and fluid and led mainly by the community. I have no desire to impose my version of what change looks like on others. And maybe that’s a control thing - when it’s small, I feel like we're better placed to work on any unintended harms.

But yes, Farheen and I have talked about it, and at some point, we would love to create more programmes to lower any barriers to entry for self-exploration with art. One other dream is to have a permanent queer space, maybe a cafe or bar with community initiatives.

Personally, I would love to learn more about community organizing and how I can live in a way that’s more aligned with my values. I'm curious about anarchist squats, organizing food drives and supporting mutual aid.

Before we end, are there any resources you’d like to recommend?

@genieheenie's zines - they did one on disability, among others, which you could check out at their artist page. And transformative justice zines of @faraway.olives too.

Excerpts from genieheenie’s Disability Zine

If you’d like to join or find out more about these initiatives, feel free to reach out to Minsoo on Instagram @mintskaa.

All images are provided by Minsoo.

"A migrant domestic worker, just like anyone else, should be able to get justice": Ijechi Nazirah

Ijechi Nazirah (Naz) is a former student of the Double Degree Programme in Law and Liberal Arts (DDP) at Yale-NUS College. She has a degree in Law from National University of Singapore and currently works at Justice Without Borders (JWB) as their Singapore Legal Officer.

Sylvia: Hi Naz! Can you share the work you currently lead?

Naz: JWB’s main vision is to improve cross-border access to justice for migrant domestic workers (MDWs) across the region. Currently, we're focused on MDWs from Indonesia and the Philippines, and we focus specifically also on Singapore and Hong Kong as host countries.

I'm a legal officer, and serve as a bridge between the client (migrant domestic worker) in Indonesia or the Philippines, and the lawyers. In my day to day, I do casework, which involves screening and reviewing the cases that we can refer to lawyers.

We mostly get referrals from our frontline partners, which are NGOs in Singapore and Indonesia. In Singpore, these include the Foreign Domestic Worker Association for Social Support and Training (FAST) and Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (HOME). FAST runs shelters for MDWs, which are quite important because they provide shelter to MDWs who are abused by their employer. There are a substantial number of MDWs in that situation. There are other situations when an MDW is not able to stay with their employer or the employment agency, and they end up being housed in one of these shelters.

Sylvia: What kind of cases does Justice Without Borders take on?

Naz: We focus specifically on civil compensation.

To give context, local NGOs like HOME and FAST work with MDWs who are still based here, in Singapore. Once a migrant domestic worker goes home, it becomes difficult for her to access any legal recourse that she might be entitled to in Singapore. For example, if you want to file a magistrate's complaint, you have to be here in Singapore. But regardless of all sorts of complicated cross-border issues, you know, a migrant domestic worker like other people should be able to get justice wherever they are.

That’s where we come in, to work on cases to win some sort of compensation as a legal remedy, but for some of them, it's also a sense that their story is heard, that people heard what they went through.

That’s where we come in, to work on cases to win some sort of compensation as a legal remedy, but for some of them, it's also a sense that their story is heard, that people heard what they went through.

By the time we enter the situation, the migrant domestic worker has gone home. It is quite unfortunate that once the MDWs go home, legal access is not readily available. For example, a lot of them live in rural places where lawyers and any form of legal option is simply not very accessible, and often their internet signal is not very good.There are a lot of practical challenges and also, they may not have much money. Our main objective is to help them seek the justice that they're entitled to.

Sylvia: You mentioned that as the legal officer, you are the bridge between your clients, which are the domestic workers, and lawyers. Does that mean you're not directly practicing law?

Naz: That’s right, I’m not, and that's an important distinction. So when we work on a case, JWB pairs them up with a lawyer that is based in Singapore and is licensed to practice in Singapore. So I'm not the lawyer that actually represents them.

Sylvia: Given that you have a law degree and are licensed to practice law – what made you decide to serve the community in this aspect, rather than as a pro bono lawyer for JWB?

Naz: It was mostly a personal decision. Towards the end of my first year in practice, I took a step back and reassessed my legal career. It also happened that JWB and a couple of other NGOs were hiring then. Having interned at JWB as a Legal Fellow in my second year of law school, JWB made sense for me because I was familiar with the organisation and the work that they do. Also, within the NGO space, I think a lot of legal roles tend to be more policy and advocacy-focused, meaning that the scope of work is more focused on trying to change the law, and the stakeholders they interact with are mostly government and other lawyers, which is not necessarily my cup of tea.

I like that my role in JWB allows me to deal with different stakeholders and still interact with the law. My work now is more about how we can work with the laws as they currently exist to advocate for better outcomes for our clients.

The firm that I was previously practicing [as a lawyer] at prides itself on being a community law firm. Most of the clients we worked with, especially in the litigation space that I was in, were from a working-class background and were not familiar with the law. The clients at JWB aren't that different. So there also wasn’t much of a transition in terms of the type of clients I was working with as a practicing lawyer and as a legal officer.

Sylvia: What do you think are some of the transferable skills from being a practicing lawyer to working as a legal officer in the non-profit space?

Naz: An example that comes to mind from working in litigation is being able to communicate with people of different backgrounds – for example, at my job I am supposed to be able to break down otherwise complex legal concepts into easily understandable terms. This applies both to my clients at JWB and the law firm I previously worked at.

I like that the role at JWB gives me a bit of that balance in dealing with people of different backgrounds: on one hand, there are the clients that I deal with are not as well-versed when it comes to the law, and on the other, there are the lawyers.

Sylvia: Did you always know that you wanted to do something related to law and social impact?

Naz: That's a good question. I never thought about it. Growing up, I never wanted to study law, I just wanted to study psychology. At the core of it, what I'm interested in is people, and understanding why people do the things they do, or why they think the way they do. The opportunity at JWB has given me a way to practice law but also incorporate that people element. So doing some sort of public interest-type litigation work makes sense to me.

I’ve always wanted to try out different things, so I did internships with big firms and small firms, and decided to try non-profits as well. Over time, I found that I like this sort of work. I actually quite enjoy practicing law as well, but for this period of time, it’s a matter of trying something a bit different and something that I know I enjoy.

Sylvia: How do you see law being used as a tool to address social impact goals?

Naz: In relation to the work that we do at JWB, I think the law can be a very helpful tool in changing perspectives. I think there’s quite a lot that can be done to change the way Singaporeans in general view MDWs.

It's unfortunate, but it's still common for employers to treat workers like children – they keep their passport, don’t give them ATM cards to their own bank accounts, etc.

Among agencies, it's still common practice to overcharge MDWs for placement fees. There are very pervasive recurring issues in this space. If we're able to build up enough legal cases so that more and more migrant workers get compensated for the wrongdoing done to them, then I think that would discourage or deter these harmful practices among employers and agencies.

If we're able to build up enough legal cases so that more and more migrant workers get compensated for the wrongdoing done to them, then I think that would discourage or deter these harmful practices among employers and agencies.

Sylvia: When I hear you talk about there being pervasive recurring issues - I was just wondering, how does it feel to listen to stories like this everyday in your work?

Naz: I am quite conscious of how easily you can get desensitised when you hear so many of these stories. For every new case that we get referred to, most of the time it's not the exact same case, but there are similar issues and threads that connect many of these cases together.

I try to take a step back, almost like pretending that this is the first time I'm doing a case, and go through that bafflement and shock and disbelief – it does help drive me.

I also remind myself of the importance of perspective. For example, sometimes a client will come to us and say that they’ve spent their own money on something that their agency was supposed to have paid for. I then look over the costs and it's $50. From an objective perspective, this amount is smaller than what a pro bono lawyer would end up spending in fees. But I have to remind myself that while $50 is a small amount to me, to a migrant domestic worker, it's a lot, and could be one week’s worth of food.

Sylvia: You mentioned that there are similar threads that tie the cases together. Could you say more about what a typical case looks like?

Naz: So some of the more common issues in relation to MDWs are ill treatment, abuse, and unpaid salary. But I am also conscious that we're taking a select sample of cases, which are the worst of the cases and it’s not to say that these are common problems that domestic workers in Singapore face.

There are also two pools of cases – one where the employer is the errant one, and the other is where the agencies are the errant one.

On the employer side, a common issue is illegal deployment of workers, such as making workers clean their office, a friend's house, stuff like that. And on the employment agency side - overcharging MDWs for services, which is actually a more complicated problem because there are gaps in the law that allow these agencies to keep doing what they do, and it's really hard to hold them accountable.

Sylvia: What does your day-to-day look like?

Naz: It really depends on organisational needs, but by and large it’s casework. Usually, we get a referral from our partner NGOs and I’ll take a look at the interview notes, important documentation, and other provided details. From there, I will provide a preliminary assessment of the case and the potential courses of available action.

At the end of that process, I'll liaise with my NGO counterparts, who will reach out to a client and get us the information that we need. Then we have internal discussions about which are the cases that are strong enough to proceed with. I'll then reach out to partners and lawyers in Singapore about representing that case.

Another big part of my work is strategic legal research. As I mentioned, there are common issues across the cases, and some of these common problems are common because there are gaps in the law. So as much as we can, we get the help of our partners, pro bono lawyers and ourselves to conduct research on the existing laws, and brainstorm ways to resolve some of the gaps that are currently in the law.

Sylvia: What do you think is the importance of organisations like JWB, in connecting migrant domestic workers to avenues for justice and civil compensation?

Naz: The hope is that at some point, cross border access to justice won't be such a issue and complex thing to navigate, and that we will be able to share all the learnings and expertise from over the years with other local NGOs who are looking to do what we do, but without dedicating so much resources into dealing with cross border issues.

For example, at the moment, we have a caseload of about 30 active cases across our 4 offices. So if we can do 30 a year, but another NGO can do 30, and there are hundreds of NGOs that can do 30 cases each year, then that will really improve access to justice for MDWs. That scale is really the goal.

Sylvia: What do you think about the practice of hiring a domestic worker for a household?

Naz: I think it can be difficult for employers sometimes in that the lines between employee and family member are blurred, and I think surely that affects your relationships and your interactions with your employee. It's so bizarre when I think about how a person can hit your own employee - like the idea is insane to me, say, I don't do a piece of work properly and my boss hits me. It's mind blowing. But when you think about it more deeply, I think maybe for MDWs, they're not really always easily seen as just an employee. They're often seen as just another family member, in the way you would “hit” your brother from time to time.

Sylvia: Okay, last question. How do you think your experience attending Yale-NUS has shaped your career path?

Naz: I took a gap year to go to Yale-NUS, otherwise I would have started law school in 2012. Most of my friends from my cohort in high school have been in practice for at least three years. If I had gone down that route I would have probably just – because if most of my friends have been with me – I think it would have been easier for me to go down the typical route. Like doing four years of law school, completing training and becoming a senior associate in a law firm somewhere. It's hard to tell – it's just a “what if” – but I might have been less inclined to try something new if not for the fact that I made the choice to go to Yale-NUS.