Background
From East Java, she is 41 years old and is a mother of one child now 19 years old. She is now a widow and sole provider for her child. She has a junior high school education (9 years) and after about 9+ years in Singapore, should be able to speak and understand English better than she did in 2003.

Work History

1. She first came to work in Singapore in Feb 99 to work for a local family of Indian origin. Her main duty was the care of an elderly man in his 90's. Besides care of the old man, Suhartini also did the cooking, cleaning and laundry. She worked for the family until Nov 01 - for a total of 2¾ years.
2. Her next position lasted almost 2 years, from Nov 01 till Jul 03. Her host family was a Singapore Chinese. There were 3 children in the family, the youngest of whom was 13 years old. Though they were old enough to do most things for themselves, they still needed Suhartini for a glass of water, so she told me.
3. Her third employer was our client, who hired her because of her experience taking care of the elderly gentleman in Job 1 above. The man had Parkinson's and besides reminding him to take whatever medication he was on, she also cooked, washed and cleaned.
4. Next she worked for another family for 1½ years - from Nov 06 to Mar 07.
5. She was not successful in her next situation (I do not know why because by then we had lost touch; she is now in Indonesia and only called recently to say she wanted to come back).
6. However her last job lasted a full 2 years (going by MOM's record). I am not able to list her duties during this period from Apr 07 to Apr 09. However, since she completed her two years, it is fair to conclude that she did at least a satsifactory job and presume her duties were cooking, cleaning and laundry ---- the minimum requirements of most families.

Cooking
From old notes I made in 2003, before we placed her with Employer 3, she said she could cook both Chinese and Indian food. This is reasonable as she had worked for an Indian family for 2 years and 9 months and for 2 Chinese families (up to 2003). By 2009 she had worked for at least 4 Chinese families for almost 7 years.

As a mother and housewife (during the time she was not in Singapore) she probably did the cooking herself.

Childcare
The youngest child she has cared for as a paid childminer was 13 but more relevant, she is a mother herself and took care of her own child from birth.

Personality and Proficiency in English
In 2003 I saw her as cheerful and outgoing and able to express herself in English sufficiently well. Now, 7 years later and 3 employers later, one can reasonably expect her English to be better.

When available: As Soon As Possible

Profile by Karl Tan
Licensed Employment Agent since 1981