
Stephanie’s journey with Beautiful People began 12 years ago when she was a resident of Grace Haven Home. After two years of seeking to be part of Beautiful People’s mentoring programme, Stephanie enrolled in the My Beautiful Life (MBL) programme at 15 years old and this is when she met her Big Sister, Lala. The year-long MBL programme was incredibly empowering for Stephanie; she recounts how the small activities and thoughts shared during MBL had positively impacted her mindset as an adolescent. The group and one-on-one conversations with Lala revolving around dreams iterated the notion that ‘anyone can be anything they set their minds to’. This mindset motivated Stephanie to achieve great things in her own life, and this started with exercising autonomy and ownership over her discharge plans while she was a Grace Haven resident.
Mentor’s Belief that Opened Doors For Stephanie
Stephanie chanced upon an ad on Facebook to become a flight attendant when she was 19 years old. Despite the seemingly unfavourable circumstances such as the lack of self-confidence and lack of guarantor for her application, Stephanie’s application was accepted, became a flight attendant and travelled the world for over one and a half years. This was only possible because of her Big Sister, Lala.
The application required a guarantor and she turned to Lala, despite having lost contact with her for three years. Lala believed in Stephanie’s choice and agreed to become her guarantor for the application. This was the start of Stephanie’s venture into the world, as she goes on to experience and achieve the great things in her life.
Stephanie’s Flourishing Life After Discharge
After her time as a flight attendant, Stephanie was then offered a better paying job and her career continued to prosper from there. Stephanie, who is turning 25 years old this year, is now a Project Manager at a digital agency with the focus of enabling SMEs in Singapore to go digital by delivering websites and system development.
In addition to her promising career, Stephanie has experienced new things such winning a beauty pageant and traveling around the world. All of these experiences were doors that opened after Lala’s belief and trust in Stephanie’s choice when she applied for her first job.
Paying It Forward
Stephanie is now paying it forward as a mentor at Pertapis Centre for Women and Girls. Stephanie’s experience as a Beautiful People mentee and beyond after meeting all kinds of people from varying backgrounds, she has learnt the beauty of kindness - the act of giving without receiving. To Stephanie, Beautiful People is one of the rare organisations where people just do good for the sake of doing good, not for recognition or anything in return.
Stephanie’s journey as a mentor of being able to create an avenue of activities for the mentees and being a source of happiness and excitement for them is a rewarding experience. Her piece of wisdom for mentees who are in the same position as her is this, “Don’t give in to the way people think of you. It changes. Different people will see you differently. Look at everyone with an open mind and make your difference in any way you want to, because you can be anything you set your mind to!”