Celebrating International Women's Day with nail art

Two years ago, Fyza and Elle were both low-income mothers who had a hard time finding a job.

Now, Fyza is currently a supervisor at The Nail Social, while Elle is a trainer there. The Nail Social is a local social enterprise that focuses on hiring underprivileged women in Singapore.

Prior to joining The Nail Social, Fyza was unable to find a full-time job as she needed to look after her six children. She was unable to work for long hours at a time, and couldn’t work weekends when her children didn’t have school. For five years, all she could find were short-term odd jobs such as cashiering, cleaning and working in factories.

Her lucky break came when she enrolled in a self-esteem programme held by Daughters of Tomorrow, a Singapore-based organisation that champions the causes of underprivileged women. A social worker took notice of her and recommended her for a job as a manicurist at The Nail Social, despite her lack of experience.

Founder of The Nail Social Cheryl Ou took a chance on her and agreed to Fyza’s many requirements, as well as providing her with free training to equip her for the job. However, returning to the workforce after years of unemployment was a daunting task.

“[When I first attended] training, in my mind I thought of dropping everything and running, because I didn’t know anything,” Fyza said, “Will I cut the customer’s fingers? What will happen next if I do something wrong?”

Fyza was recently promoted to a supervisor at the salon. She said it was Cheryl’s trust and belief in her that empowered Fyza to get where she is today.

“I didn’t want to disappoint them [Cheryl and her business partner, Germaine Monteiro] because they had so much confidence in me,” Fyza said.

Similarly, Elle has come a long way since joining The Nail Social. A low-income mother of five children, she had left her previous job as a manicurist and was unemployed for six years as she had to look after her family. Like Fyza, a social worker referred Elle to The Nail Social, and Elle has since been promoted from a manicurist to a trainer.

For Cheryl, the decision to start this social enterprise came after she was abruptly kicked out of her first salon business without a cent after a dispute with her previous business partner. “It made me really think about what type of business I wanted to have. [Owning a business] is more than just about me, and I realised that employers have the opportunity to impact their workers,” Cheryl said.

The Nail Social was at Tower Transit’s Bulim Bus Depot in Jurong for the transport company’s International Women’s Day 2017 event. The company’s female employees – from administrative staff to engineers and even bus captains – were treated to free express manicures done by The Nail Social, as a form of appreciation from Tower Transit.

Cheryl said some of the female bus captains had never been pampered this way before, and one of them even teared up after getting her nails done.

“It’s nice to see these women getting appreciation for their work, and we’re very thankful for companies like Transit Tower that share a similar view as The Nail Social,” Cheryl said.