{"id":9664,"date":"2019-04-01T14:57:37","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T06:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/?p=9664"},"modified":"2025-08-20T14:58:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T06:58:37","slug":"lighting-up-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/2019\/04\/01\/lighting-up-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Lighting Up Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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WHO IS HE?<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>

Mr Fairoz Ahmad is the founder of Chapter W, a non-profit organisation that seeks to uplift the lives of rural women in Indonesia. Chapter W was named one of 50 Ideas To Change The World by The Straits Times, and Mr Fairoz was presented the NUS Outstanding Young Alumni Award in 2017 for his work.<\/em><\/p><\/div>

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Mr Fairoz Ahmad, 37, was studying Sociology at the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences when \u2014 as an undergraduate in the University Scholars Programme (USP) \u2014 he had to make a trip to Aceh, Indonesia, less than two months after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami hit. \u201cI was there because USP was facilitating a request from the theatre group, The Necessary Stage (TNS), for volunteers to visit the province and interview the survivors for a play called\u00a0Boxing Day<\/em>,\u201d he says. \u201cThe play was meant to raise funds for
relief efforts.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>

That venture into a disaster-hit area left a life-changing mark on Mr Fairoz. The impact was so profound, he says, that he came home and \u201cchanged completely the direction of my thesis in my final year! Originally, I was focusing on the topic of race in Singapore, but after Aceh, I changed to the sociology of disaster.\u201d<\/p>

Mr Fairoz went on to found what is today Chapter W, a non-profit organisation that ultimately launched the Mothers of Light programme, which trains and equips women in rural Indonesia to become entrepreneurs through the sale of solar lamps. Most villages rely on kerosene lamps, which cause serious health problems \u2014 the smoke inhaled by a child sleeping near a kerosene lamp is equivalent to that inhaled by a two-packs-a-day smoker. Solar lamps are a healthy, clean and inexpensive alternative. The programme allows women to thus earn an income and keep their families in better health.\u00a0<\/p>

Today, Mr Fairoz, who is a lecturer, is the Executive Director of Chapter W on a pro bono basis \u2014 committing certain hours each week, being responsible for formal reporting requirements and travelling to Indonesia every month (without drawing a salary). He talks to The\u00a0Alum<\/em>NUS about the patience, perseverance and preparation it takes to effect a powerful change in parts of rural Indonesia.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE OF POST-TSUNAMI ACEH LIKE?<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>

I was there with fellow USP classmate Ms Gloria Arlini (Arts and Social Sciences \u201907) (who would go on to co-found Chapter W with him<\/em>). When we arrived, rescuers were still trying to move the dead and bury them; thousands of families had been separated. WiFi access was virtually non-existent in remote areas and mobile phones were still very expensive for the rural poor, thus it was not easy for them to contact each other.<\/p>

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HOW DID YOU COME TO START CHAPTER W (FIRST NAMED NUSANTARA DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE)?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>

After I completed my undergrad degree, I was in the civil service for a couple of years, before returning to NUS to do a Masters in Sociology. I met some Indonesian students from various universities in Singapore who wanted to do rural development work in Indonesia, and I jumped on the opportunity. This was around 2011. One of the first Indonesian members called the initiative NDI \u2014 Nusantara Development Initiative, a very typical, almost nationalistic-sounding name<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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WHAT WERE YOUR DREAMS FOR NDI AND HOW DID YOU MAKE THEM COME TRUE?<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>

A few of us decided that NDI was going to be different from the majority of student-run volunteer groups that did one-off projects. We would behave as a professionally-run non-governmental organisation (NGO) with programmes that could measure social impact and withstand scrutiny. All this was immensely difficult to achieve. Many members left because they could not commit to this level of professionalism. We were students, and none were getting paid. It took almost three years \u2014 with me juggling full-time work, and many false starts and headaches \u2014 before we crafted what would become our defining programme, Mothers of Light. From a voluntary university-level effort, we are now a formalised NGO with full-time staff, and a legal entity in Singapore and Indonesia. As we grew, we decided to change our brand name to Chapter W \u2014 the W refers to \u201cwomen\u201d \u2014 we are helping these women write their own stories, their own chapters in life.<\/p>

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TELL US ABOUT THIS PROGRAMME AND HOW IT GREW.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>

I came to realise that the rural poor actually are the complete opposite of how we think they should be. They are just like us, with aspirations, dreams, hopes and skills. The image of them as passive and dependent is an expression of the \u2018saviour mentality\u2019 that many of us are guilty of, reflecting the misunderstanding of the lived realities of the poor. Mothers of Light is a complex development project that integrates technology, community mobilisation, rural supply chain, financing, revenue-sharing, monitoring mechanisms and entrepreneurship. We did our pilot in a sea village in the Riau Islands; it succeeded wildly. We then had the confidence to pitch our idea at start-up competitions, and won a couple of them. We received funding from foundations and companies who believed in our cause. Eventually, we met advisors in the social impact space who helped us transition to a formally-registered social enterprise. In 2016, we moved our office from Singapore to Jakarta (and now Jogjakarta), so that we could hire local full-time staff \u2014 we now have four \u2014 to run the projects.\u00a0<\/p>

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HOW DID YOU GET THE PEOPLE’S BUY-IN TO THIS IDEA?<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>

It was by getting to know the communities, and understanding their world view, and the competitiveness
of the idea. They were mostly using kerosene lamps and thus had to buy kerosene every week. Understanding their habits, expenses and pain points helped us design a programme that fits their needs. For example, we teach the women to sell the solar lights on a weekly installment basis, at a price that is lower than the weekly spend on kerosene. This helped many people to make the switch to solar lights.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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WERE THERE ANY ROLE MODELS AT NUS WHO INSPIRED YOU TO THINK OF BEING AN AGENT OF SOCIAL CHANGE?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>

I never thought of myself back in NUS as someone who would be involved in the areas I am in now, but the opportunity to go to Aceh was one defining moment. Another factor was the encouragement from, and conversations with, Professor Albert Teo (Arts and Social Sciences \u201986), a former Deputy Director in USP. He was very passionate in the area of community development and social impact.\u00a0<\/p>

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YOU ARE A USP ALUMNUS. HOW DID THE USP SHAPE YOU INTO THE PERSON YOU ARE TODAY?<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>

In USP, I was exposed to different fields and knowledge, and to very different kinds of students and professors. I got a sense of a broader world, realising there are many ways to overcome a problem. This indirectly influenced my early work in Chapter W, where the system we designed was influenced by insights from various fields \u2014 sociology, economics, business, engineering and psychology.<\/p>

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WHAT IS CHAPTER W’S ULTIMATE GOAL, IN YOUR VIEW?<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>

The ultimate purpose of development, borrowing from the economist Amartya Sen\u2019s words, is to expand freedom \u2014 what one can actually do and be. Poverty limits freedom. So, instead of just asking \u201cDo you have money\u201d we should also ask, \u201cWhat can you actually do and be?\u201d One day, the Mothers of Light programme will end, because those who need light will have it. We hope that the women we have empowered can use the money, skills, confidence and knowledge they have gained through the programme as a stepping stone to be what they can be, and to do what they seek to do.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\"Mr
Mr Fairoz in the field conducting an inspection of the lamps to be distributed.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"The
The solar lamps have the potential to bring about positive changes to the lives of Indonesia\u2019s rural poor.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mr Fairoz Ahmad (Arts & Social Sciences + USP \u201906) let an experience from a trip to Aceh, Indonesia, after the Boxing Day tsunami transform him into a changemaker that \u2014 through his organisation Chapter W \u2014 empowers rural Indonesian women to become entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":9665,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-impact","category-startups"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9664"}],"version-history":[{"count":62,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9730,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9664\/revisions\/9730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}