At 19 years old, Sazzad Hossain started SDI Academy to teach migrant workers skills in business, communication and financial literacy. Eight years later, he has seen more than 8,000 students—some of who have moved on to start their own social enterprise
In the What Matters To Me series, a Generation T honouree describes what they do, why they do it, and why it matters.
Singapore’s foreign workforce comprises over 1.2 million people. This includes work-permit holders such as domestic helpers and individuals hired in the construction sector. Many face language and cultural barriers when they first arrive in the country, which may lead them to face issues ranging from not being able to understand the basic safety regulations of their workplace to enduring feelings of social isolation.
For Sazzad Hossain, who left Bangladesh to move to Singapore with his family at 11 years old, these issues hit close to home. It was his personal experience as a foreigner in a new country that led him to start his social enterprise, SDI Academy, eight years later.
When Sazzad arrived in Singapore, he knew very little English. He struggled to keep up with his peers after enrolling in a local primary school and was placed in a class that was two grades below. But he picked up the language quickly and later even began to teach it to migrant workers living in his neighbourhood, with whom he’d make friends.
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Through word-of-mouth, his student base grew and he launched SDI Academy, which has since trained over 8,500 migrant workers skills in English communication, financial and IT literacy, and entrepreneurship. Last year, the social enterprise launched its mobile app to facilitate virtual learning and provide other features, such as diarying and speech recognition.
On the side, Sazzad has also been running pilot tests for his second startup, DoorMart. The food subscription and delivery service platform has distributed 5,000 meals since it started in late 2019 and may in time be integrated into SDI Academy’s app.
Sazzad, who is an Obama Foundation Leader and an Ashoka Fellow, shares more on his work and hopes for the future.
The migrant worker community has a huge potential for transformation. The multiplier impact we can achieve by empowering this community and their future generations motivates me to continue doing this work. Some of our beneficiaries have achieved incredible successes and are paying it forward by establishing their own social organisations.
I started teaching English to migrant workers after hearing their struggles. When I made friends with some of them living around my estate, they told me they couldn’t understand the safety instructions given to them at work because they were in English. So, I taught them the language because their lives were at stake.