Masks for Double Happiness

​PeopleStories has been serving the children of Cambodia since 2017 and our work won’t be successful without the support from our corporate partners and donors.   Lloyd’s Asia has been backing PeopleStories since 2018 when we were introduced to their previous CEO, Angela.  Since then, we have been hosting Treats for Good charity events at their Singapore office to raise fund to help further the education of children in rural Cambodia. 

While children in rural Cambodia were getting back to school since September 2020, one of the key requirements was to wear a mask when attending school.  Our local team started paying a small local workshop to produce masks for the children.  So far, we have provided around 300 masks.

After discussing the situation with Wen Ya, Event Manager at Lloyd’s Asia, we decided to design a workshop that is good for team engagement as well as making more impact for our communities.  So, PeopleStories ran a Mask for Good workshop with 12 colleagues including their current CEO Pavlos just before end of 2020.   The group learned how to hand sew face masks not only for the children of Cambodia but also their loved ones at home. 

Talking about the workshop experience, Wen Ya shared, “We really enjoyed it!  It was definitely interesting to do something different from our day-to-day work, but more importantly it felt very rewarding to help the community in Cambodia with sewing these masks. I don’t think many of us had sewn anything previously and so we enjoyed learning a new skill.  Jacquelene (our volunteer mask making trainer) and Victoria (our Founder) were very patient in teaching and guiding us through the process of making these masks which helped us in completing them.”

The Lloyd’s Asia team are always keen to give back to the community where possible and committed to supporting charitable causes.  Participating in the ‘Mask for Good’ workshop and doing a charitable activity together was very meaningful to them.  They felt it was gratifying to be able to help the children in Cambodia with handmade masks from them!
 
Wen Ya further reflected on Lloyd’s journey with PeopleStories, “We have been working with PeopleStories for quite some time now doing Treats For Good and we can see all the good and real work that PeopleStories has done. PeopleStories’ mission is to transform lives in rural Cambodia through education and that is also something that we believe will enable rural communities to break out of poverty.” 

She added, “What we feel makes PeopleStories different from the many charities out there is that 100% of the donations go to the people that actually need the support the most. It is also inspiring to see the passion that Victoria and her team possess. PeopleStories does incredible things for the community and we are proud to support them along this journey!”

The mask-making workshop was a resounding success.  Not only did we manage to raise awareness about the educational problem in Cambodia and obtain strong support from everyone, but also managed to send many hand-sewn masks to one of our schools for the children to use!  Colleagues from Llyod's Asia also made more masks for their own families too.  

​More excitingly, Lloyd’s Asia has made a generous donation to PeopleStories to further our work in 2021 and enable greater support to the children of Cambodia.

After months of working from home, many people are feeling a bit lack of human connection or connectedness. This workshop not only bring people closer but also offers some new skills plus a chance to give to the less fortunate. Victoria shared, “I personally didn’t know how to sew, but Jacquelene taught me so well and now I am wearing my own hand-sewn masks!!!” 
 
Would your organisation like to have a doing good team building workshop for your people?  Do contact us at [email protected]for more details.