All things Sweet

Owner Leona Leong is spread­ing sweet­ness in help­ing a mar­gin­alised group of individuals.

By ELEANOR YAP

Leona Leong is a minor­ity amongst the hand­ful of hearing-​impaired indi­vid­u­als. “I know what it feels like to be the per­son who is deaf in a hearing-​impaired world!” she remarked. This 28-​year-​old runs her own social enter­prise called Aii which sells all things sweet, and she hires hearing-​impaired to help grow her busi­ness. Cur­rently, she has one full-​time staff and six part-​timers, and hopes to add more.

A fight­ing chance

Pre­vi­ously an air stew­ardess like her mother, Leong has also tried her hand in run­ning a whole­sale women’s cloth­ing busi­ness online about 10 years ago, at the time, one of the pio­neers retail­ing on the Net. She has also dab­bled in mar­ket­ing at Mar­riott Hotel’s Bar None. “I ran out of ideas on what to do next and decided to do some­thing with sweets as my Chi­nese name has the word ‘sweet’ in it ­– Leong Sweet Yee!” she shared.

She was not afraid to go down a dif­fer­ent path as she knew the cor­po­rate con­tacts she picked up from her work in her pre­vi­ous job and busi­ness would come in handy. In Feb­ru­ary 2011, Leong started Aii or 愛 (the tra­di­tional Chi­nese or Japan­ese char­ac­ter for love, which was cho­sen because she believes that, in the eyes of love, every­body is equal) with just S$2,000, and a strong deter­mi­na­tion and beliefs.

She added: “I am not a uni­ver­sity grad­u­ate. I have never been inter­ested in stud­ies. How­ever, my pre­vi­ous boss in Bar None gave me the oppor­tu­nity to excel and I did just that. I believe a cer­tifi­cate doesn’t mean any­thing; it is really about one’s atti­tude to do well. I believe every­one is capa­ble; they just may not have been given the chance to shine.”

With this in the back of her mind, she wanted to give oth­ers also that same fight­ing chance she had received and decided to hire the hearing-​impaired. “I have never vol­un­teered before and I have never worked with peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties. I reck­oned that they would be the best group to start to work with as I also didn’t mind writ­ing lengthy con­ver­sa­tions to com­mu­ni­cate to them or learn a new lan­guage – sign language.”

Her first hire (and cur­rently the only full-​time employee) is Hina Liang, a 28-​year-​old with aspi­ra­tions to own a pho­tog­ra­phy busi­ness in two years. Leong explained that the Sin­ga­pore Asso­ci­a­tion for the Deaf (SADeaf) intro­duced Liang to her in May last year and that she really wanted a job. Liang lamented that it is often dif­fi­cult get­ting a job as beyond hav­ing an impair­ment, she is fur­ther hin­dered by not being able to pick up the phone as some­times peo­ple might not be able to under­stand her and she can­not speak Chi­nese. Aii is her third job and as Leong’s “per­sonal assis­tant” (as Leong loosely called it), she han­dles pack­ing, admin­is­tra­tion, sell­ing at bazaars or at com­pa­nies’ loca­tions (when invited), graphic design and photography.

Added Leong: “I feel there is not much being done for the hearing-​impaired and I wanted to treat them equally. At Aii, I would push them as I would with any able-​bodied staff as I want them to know that they are as capa­ble as any able-​bodied per­son and should not allow their dis­abil­ity to slow them down or hold them back.” Also, her own com­pany cul­ture is there is no boss or sub­or­di­nate; every­one includ­ing Leong picks up the rubbish.

Asked where she got the desire to reach out to the mar­gin­alised in soci­ety, she cred­ited her father for show­ing her the way. “My dad is a Sin­ga­pore Air­lines’ pilot and he is very kind. When he goes to var­i­ous coun­tries, he often buys sweets for the poor chil­dren and he also helps the elderly cross the road. I love my dad and want to be like him.”

A lit­tle stub­born­ness always helps

Now close to a year in busi­ness, Leong said in the two months she has already made back what she has put in and she is turn­ing a profit, thanks to Christ­mas and soon, Chi­nese New Year. She has also moved to a new office with a space of 110 sq ft on the east side. The bulk of her income comes from ham­pers ordered by cor­po­rates, and she has big names as clients like DBS, SingHealth, The Body Shop and Microsoft.

“I am not wor­ried about the impend­ing eco­nomic cri­sis as I believe every­one eats sweets and my sweets are not expen­sive.” Her sweet vari­eties, which come from all parts of the world, can also be found in goodie bags and given as wed­ding favours. Most of her part-​time staff, who come in when they are free, are roped in to han­dle the packing.

Leong is look­ing to hire more hearing-​impaired as well as other mar­gin­alised groups like seniors to help with the pack­ing and to sell the sweets at bazaars. “I will help peo­ple who really want to help them­selves and who are dis­crim­i­nated from work­ing.” Asked what the chal­lenges are work­ing with the hearing-​impaired, she shared: “I don’t treat them as chal­lenges or even prob­lems. Any­thing that hap­pens, I will deal with it. My men­tal­ity is always like that. If I want to hire them, I will do so and deal with it. I am very stub­born in that way.”

She laughed that there are times when she would have to ask them to stop “sign­ing” and to do their work but this is a really a happy prob­lem. “I am happy because it really feels like home for them. This is what I want to achieve in my company.”

In turn­ing her sweet enter­prise to help oth­ers, it in turn has given her many learn­ing lessons. “I under­stand more now about the hearing-​impaired. I hope to con­tinue break­ing down the myth espe­cially the fact that being hearing-​impaired also means that they are mute which is untrue.”

“I really want to add a lit­tle more hap­pi­ness to the world and I think I am doing this one step at a time,” said Leong. When one has a sweet, it sure makes one want to smile!