A start-up advocacy group for migrant workers has launched a unique contest dubbed “UAE’s Best Nanny Awards,” with the winner receiving a retirement fund of one million in her home country’s currency.
Padmini Gupta and Milind Singh, co-founders rise, which describes itself as a “wealth management platform for migrants,” said they embarked on the contest, which is now on its second year, to give credit where it is due.
“Our surveys in the nanny/maid community found that almost 40% of them don’t tell their families back home that they are working as maids here,” said Gupta and Singh in an email interview.
“It is seen as a low-end job, with no growth prospects, yet they take care of our most valued assets – our children. We wanted to give them the dignity associated with any other profession and celebrate the important role they play in our society, hence the awards,” Gupta, a former banker; and Singh, Oxford-educated business development and investments officer, added.
The two said rise will invest in a retirement plan under the winner’s name – annually putting in Dh50,000 over a 10-year period – entirely from its own budget.
“We did not want to give the winner a large sum upfront for two reasons,” said the two. “First, we wanted to encourage the other nannies, even if they don’t win, to start planning about their retirement; second, most families would not nominate their nanny if they were scared about her leaving them after winning.”
Three Filipina nannies – a grand prize winner and two runners-up – won in the inaugural awards held on Nov. 19, 2016 at Taj Hotel. The awards had more than 200 entries and almost 100,000 people voted, organizers said.
Twenty-nine-year-old Lorina Bunio, the grand winner, was described as “the family’s angel, the glue that holds the family together.”
The two runners-up were Danalyn Acuriza, 40; and Besma Abas, 48.
The event will this year be held on Nov. 25 in a venue to be announced.
Further explaining why they came up with the awards Gupta and Singh said 70% of nannies in the UAE does not have access to true banking services and on an average spends 8-10 years in the country doing the same job.
“Maids stay a maid till, spending up to 25 years in that role with nominal salary increases. On top of that, because they don’t have a bank account here, they cannot save, so they are unable to retire. We started rise to help these migrants save enough for a retirement, get access to loans and learn new skills to improve their job prospectus,” they said.
How do I nominate your nanny
To enter, go to https://www.gorise.co/award-2017/ post a picture of your nanny and answer the questions in as much detail as you can. These posts will then be shared to encourage friends to like the best nanny.
The 20 nannies with the most Facebook likes will be selected and interviewed face to face by an expert panel, to choose a winner.
