Building on skills and knowledge to age productively

Mdm Aisah’s desire to learn and pursuit of her ideal lifestyle after retirement had led her to pick up many useful skills and knowledge in the recent years. She first got to know about National Silver Academy (NSA) through a colleague who recommended NSA to her. As she was keen to start her own business, she attended the NSA courses Selling Online by Nanyang Polytechnic and Social Media Fundamentals (Facebook & Youtube) by Mendaki SENSE.

 

Planning for life after retirement

 

After retiring in 2017, 59-year-old Mdm Aisah joined her friend to help run a pop-up business. Having had a retail background for 23 years, Mdm Aisah had gained much knowledge about the industry which was useful to her. These knowledge and experience, coupled with the skills learnt through various courses, gave her the confidence to start her own pop-up business after being inspired by her friend.

 

Mdm Aisah’s pop-up store is usually run at event spaces like shopping malls and features apparel, modern batik and home décor goods as her passion is in home décor and customer service. As the business is on an ad-hoc basis, it gives her more flexibility in her working hours so that she can balance time for her interests as well. After learning to use social media to promote her business online, she regularly curates photo shots to post online on Instagram and Facebook, with her daughter helping out from time to time.

 

"I learnt to do all the setup, administration, product sourcing and liaison with the mall by myself, which has been a great learning experience," shared Mdm Aisah.

 

"I find that the knowledge learnt from the NSA courses was beneficial for me. We should be more proactive to learn things by ourselves instead of relying on others. By attending courses, it is a good opportunity to meet people with similar interests and increase the social circle," said Mdm Aisah.

 

Picking up skills adaptable for community & society

 

Mdm Aisah is also very interested in giving back to the community and wanted to pick up useful life skills for herself. Besides the NSA courses, she has also completed an Advanced Diploma in Business, Leadership & Management course, Workplace Safety & Health, Barista courses, and eldercare courses by NTUC Learning Hub where she completed the Certificate of Community and Social Services. She feels proud to have completed the certificate course as she had studied hard for the exams and eldercare skills will be a useful life skill to her for the family or to volunteer at nursing homes and give back to society.

 

Mdm Aisah enjoys her current comfortable lifestyle and is glad that she is taking a break to pursue her interests such as travelling and music. In the future, she hopes to learn floral arrangement, website development and the Arabic language. She encourages her friends to sign up for courses and use their SkillsFuture Credit. Her advice to fellow seniors is, "We should continuously learn and discover our passion, and be always keen to improve ourselves."

 

**Special thanks to Mdm Aisah who accepted our interview, we wish her all the very best in her lifelong learning journey.

 

For a full list of short courses, click here.

For a full list of exam-free modules, click here.

For a list of ad hoc learning opportunities, click here.