BloomThis and WOMEN:girls launches Jobs for Community initiative

As the popular saying goes, when women support women, incredible things happen.

Local online florist and purveyor of gifts, BloomThis has decided to honour the upcoming International Women’s Day by launching its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, ‘Jobs For Community’ together with an NGO, WOMEN:girls.

This long-awaited initiative not only aims to provide upskilling training to women from the B40 community through a three-month paid apprenticeship program, but at least 20 participants can have the opportunity to become one of BloomThis’ fixed-term contract employees by the end of the programme.

The collaboration targets women between the ages of 18 and 40, with the long-term goal of not only providing job opportunities but also increasing the future employability of its participants by providing them with the opportunity to learn necessary skills in the florist industry, such as floral and gift handcrafting as well as logistics and operations.

BloomThis hopes to achieve and align its goals to assist the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal 1 (No Poverty), Goal 5 (Gender Equality), and Goal 8 (Climate Change) (Decent Work and Economic Growth).

According to BloomThis co-founder and managing director, Penny Choo, the idea for this initiative was inspired during the early days of the pandemic when the Movement Control Order (MCO) was implemented. It was during this period when the company initiated efforts to provide job opportunities for both the community and smaller businesses in 2020.

“BloomThis is devoted to improving the lives of those in need and we want to encourage them to achieve a better social & economic status through upskilling efforts,” Penny said.

“We envision BloomThis to be a homegrown brand who would invest heavily in forming partnerships with organisations, individuals, or NGO like WOMEN:girls to empower the local community by providing them with tools and access to appropriate living skills through apprenticeship training which will subsequently enable them to secure quality jobs with us or with others in the future,” Penny added.

Meanwhile, WOMEN:girls executive director Izza Izelan stated that part of their mission at WOMEN:girls has always been to relieve barriers and realise the options that unemployed women have.

“We recognise that there is a need for a structured program to help build the career journey for women through mentoring and learning on the field with key industry leaders, to support and equip them with skills in specialised areas.

“Through ‘Jobs for Community’ we see an opportunity to help future-proof the apprentices’ careers and change the trajectory of their lives for the better,” she said.

Participants will receive hands-on training that will equip them with the required skills to secure jobs in the industry over the three-month programme as it runs from April to December.

The three-month apprenticeship programme will take place at BloomThis' facility in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, and participants will be paid a monthly basic income throughout the programme.

For more information on Jobs for Community, contact [email protected] or [email protected].