PAYING IT FORWARD

When she noticed that women in developing countries were not getting the funding they deserved, Laina Raveendran Greene started Angels of Impact.

- Sasha Gonzales

You could say that the desire to help others runs in Laina Raveendran Greene's blood.

Born in Singapore, Laina grew up watching her parents both immigrants from Kerala, India give back to their newly adopted country. Laina's mother, a physics teacher at Raffles Institution (RI), gave free physics tuition to low-income children in their neighbourhood, and in 1969, she started a club at RI, Charity Squad, to help students learn the value of "serving with love".

Laina's father, despite working long hours at the Port of Singapore Authority, always made time to volunteer with non-profit organisations. In the early 1970s, he helped establish the Sree Narayana Mission Nursing Home with a group of friends.

Laina says that it's through her parents that she learnt the importance of serving the community and paying it forward.

"When I was in school, I'd accompany my mum and her students to do charity work under the Charity Squad. I also helped my dad whenever he volunteered. And when I was older, I gave free tuition to children at the Ramakrishna Mission Boys' Home," she shares.

Having witnessed first-hand how people from disadvantaged backgrounds had to struggle to make it in a competitive world, Laina made it her life's work to give them a helping hand.

In 2006, she co-founded Angels of Impact with the primary goal of alleviating poverty in developing countries. The social venture, based in Singapore, offers loans and technical assistance to "missing middle" women-led and indigenous-led community-based enterprises in the region. These are enterprises that are considered too large for microfinance and too small for impact investors.

She knew that these groups faced a funding gap, and she wanted to be an agent of positive change for them.

HELPING OTHERS IS PERSONAL