10/07/2024
Announcement 📢: Clarifying Misinformation and false rumours about SDI (Social Development Initiative) Academy and SDI Global, circulating around the web.
Dearest Migrant Workers and supporters of SDI Academy, we would like to bring clarity to the recent misinformation being spread and shared with false allegations about our work as well as assure everyone of our genuine intention to impact the welfare of migrants. We were completely surprised to see these baseless accusation in attempt to tarnish our image and goodwill without consulting us for our side of the story.
First of all, SDI (Social Development Initiative) Academy and SDI Global (also known as CRANE HR) are two separate organisations to serve different aspect of the lives of migrants.
SDI Academy founded in 2014 focuses on empowering migrants through English communication skills, IT literacy, financial literacy and entrepreneurship courses. We have trained more than 10,000 workers in the last 10 years with the focus on safer work place and an inclusive society. The Migrant workers have always provided tremendous positive reviews for our courses and human centric customised approaches for them. We have been looking to scale that with various new initiatives such as Dr English book launch and online learning modules.
SDI Global (aka CRANE HR) founded in 2021, is a HR technology startup which focuses on providing cross-border employment opportunities for skilled trade workers in a fair manner. SDI Global is a licensed employment agency under the Singapore Ministry of Manpower for providing comprehensive employment opportunities.
From our years of working in the Migrant workers ecosystem we realised unlike white collar jobs, blue-collar migrant workers often lack a clear career roadmap. We have identified three practical pathways for their long-term careers:
1. Improving communication and vocational skills for safer workplaces and career upgrades in Singapore.
2. Entrepreneurship training for starting ventures upon returning home.
3. Second migration based on skills to countries with long-term career prospects.
SDI Academy focuses on pathways 1 and 2 through our English communication skills courses, entrepreneurship training etc. and SDI Global focuses on pathway 3, promoting ethical second migration and, eventually, first migration to Singapore. Our vision is to revolutionise the way migrant workers are screened and hired globally, promoting livelihood & socio-economic mobility.
Since its founding in 2014, SDI Academy solely focused on educating migrants. Whereas SDI Global we started as a separate licensed employment agency since 2021, in response to the requests from many migrant workers seeking viable pathways after their stint in Singapore. SDI Global aims to provide ethical employment opportunities both to and beyond Singapore, as opposed to nefarious alternative agencies that take exorbitant placement fees and lack refund policies. Our starting point was for second migration for workers from Singapore who are seeking future opportunities. We aim to eventually go upstream to first migration to help migrant workers come to Singapore without paying exorbitant agency fees once the second migration pathways become seamless and automated.
Like many startups, SDI Global/CRANE HR has faced challenges at the initial stage due to unforeseen geopolitical situations and lengthy immigration processes but we are growing stronger. We have received more than 40 work permits. Some of the workers have successfully migrated and have started working. Others, are waiting for their visa appointments from the embassy. We have signed contracts with a number of employers that will place more than 100 workers in the next few months and are in communication with several large employers who can take even larger assignments. However, it took us some time to get here and caused longer time frame than anticipated. As such many workers requested for refunds due to the lengthy process and we have complied to the best of our abilities.
SDI Global has diligently provided refunds to nearly 90% of the workers and are doing our best to clear the remaining ones as soon as possible so as to protect the hard earned money of the migrants. We have provided with 80% cash refund as agreed after the administrative, global search, application, legal cost etc. and also the remaining 20% as credit voucher to be used in future. We are working hard to refund the remaining few migrants in the next 60 days by overcoming our cashflow challenges and seeking alternative financing such as debt financing and investment.
To ensure such incidents, do not repeat in future we have also stopped actively seeking any new candidates and have started solely focusing on getting employers who needs our services to match with the skilled workers. With the launch of full capability of our SDI Global/CRANE HR platform in the future, no upfront payment would be required and successful matches will be done at a much faster rate. While our long term ambition is to provide zero recruitment fees for migrant workers, however, based on the ground reality and unwillingness for the employers to bear the full cost SDI Global has taken a middle ground on splitting the recruitment and visa processing cost between both workers and employers to ensure both parties get a cost effective solution.
SDI Academy on the other hand remains committed to providing education for the migrants to develop in Singapore as well as providing customised entrepreneurship training for the workers who are preparing to return back home to start their venture. Over the years, we have never turned away any workers from learning despite many of their inability to pay for our courses because of our social mission to provide access to opportunities for all even though it took a financial toll on the organisation several times. We have hence designed self learning tool for the workers, an English guidebook - Dr English to enable migrants to learn English on their own in a cost effective manner to scale our impact all with the intention of increasing access to learning. We are also offering scholarships for migrant workers who are willing but unable to pay for the course fees with the support of various generous organisations.
Our conviction remains unwavering that both the mission of SDI Academy and SDI Global is crucial in providing holistic development for the migrant workers for a brighter future.
We stand with our migrant workers during this challenging time, dedicating all resources to ensuring their rights are protected. Our track record demonstrates our holistic approach and the positive impact we have made and will continue to make. We ask for your continued faith in us as we work to safeguard your trust.
If any migrants are in urgent need of refund, please reach out to our customer service via SDI Global page. We are working diligently to resolve the issues as soon as possible and emerge stronger together.
Thank you
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