I worked at Commenhers, a social enterprise that upcycles textile waste in Singapore, for more than a year alongside juggling university.
I found Yanee’s (the CEO and Co-founder) profile on LinkedIn and subsequently found Commenhers as well, and was absolutely amazed. After reading up a bit about Commenhers (I was so inspired), I decided to dm Yanee on LinkedIn just to have a chat with her. I just wanted to help Commenhers in any capacity I could. I was open to anything ranging from a one-off volunteering opportunity to an internship. Then we hopped on a call, and a quick chat later, they offered me a paid part-time internship.
Little things excited me -like having my own work email, which made me feel like I got my foot in the door, and a year later, I can attest that I got my foot in the right door :)
I was told to come down to one of the community sewing spaces that Commenhers has, where the beneficiary makers come together once every week to work on projects. Heading there, I didn’t know what to expect. I had a rough idea of the community sewing space, but I had no gauge of how it would look physically- Is it a room? Or is it a concept? Is it an indoor or outdoor space? My imagination was running wild. Once I reached the nearest bus stop, I couldn’t navigate correctly to the space (Note to self: get better at navigation).
I was lost (for a good about 20 mins), and it was frustrating. Then I finally could contact Yanee and found my way, and had a great first day. I was introduced to everyone there. They were preparing for a fashion runway later that month, and they all had their nose to the grindstone, or should I say their feet to the sewing machine.
Later that month, I went down for my first client visit. It was at the Singapore Civil Defence Forces (SCDF) Fire Department, where I met extremely passionate people who head sustainable initiatives at the department. That was the first time I met Syak, our Product Designer and Manager. She is one of the warmest and most amiable people I have met, and of course, insanely talented.
Before that day, client meetings, assessing textile waste, pitching our offerings, sketching out a timeline for a project - all of it felt distant. But at the end of my first day, I could see it all concretise, and it all made a lot more sense.
When people ask me what made me stick with Commenhers for this long, I always say it's the people. The internal team is a solid one that always looks out for each other, not just professionally, but personally as well.
A special shoutout to Yanee, who took every opportunity to ensure I experience maximum growth at my time there, whether it was switching up my job responsibilities when I was not resonating with some tasks, being open to conversations about how much time I could commit to Commenhers, allowing me to do full-time for a brief period and sanctioning me breaks when I was swamped. I always felt like an equal and not merely an “intern.” This amplified the feeling of ownership and belongingness to Commenhers, which in turn intrinsically motivated me to contribute more.
In December 2024, I was back home, but I was continuing to work remotely. During this time, I was also doing a month-long, full-time yoga course, with very sparse internet at the learning centre. During this month, my task at Commemhers was to revamp the website, and I had to learn how to work on WordPress from scratch, on extremely poor internet. Linn (Co-founder) was very helpful during this time to support me with uploads and edits on the website.