IN many Asian countries, Malaysia included, there’s a bias towards focusing on IQ (intelligence quotient) rather than EQ (emotional quotient).
In schools, we’re taught to excel in exams but there’s little effort to teach soft skills such as how to adapt to new and challenging situations to achieve your goals.
EQ is something that Ivan Eng and his wife Hany Cheng care deeply about and they’re doing their part by creating a social enterprise, Havan Clothing (www.havanclothing.com), that taps on children’s creativity to promote EQ.
Havan Clothing works with children from shelter homes to use their artwork for T-shirt designs.
“Our mission is to boost shelter-home children’s confidence through fashion,” says Eng, adding: “When you buy apparels from us, you’re directly recognising a child’s creativity. For every T-shirt sold, 15 per cent will be used to sustain our learning programmes with the shelter-home children.”
HOW DID THE IDEA FOR HAVAN COME ABOUT?
It all started a few years ago when I took part in a CSR (corporate social responsibility) programme at a shelter home to celebrate Christmas.
We played with the kids. Then we said goodbye. And never saw them again.
Hany told me that when we do charity work with kids we have to be careful. When we do a “touch and go” form of charity, it’s a kind of abandonment. What she said really hit me hard. I had good intentions but what I’d done could have been inadvertently harmful to the kids.
So I talked to Hany about it and said, “Let’s do something about this.” She did volunteer work at the shelter home for two hours every week for four months and she saw the impact on the kids.
She wanted to keep doing this programme but as a finance guy, I asked myself: How do we sustain this? There are costs in terms of stationery and art materials, petrol and, of course, time. We needed a business model to sustain this.
WHY T-SHIRTS?
We saw the artwork the kids did and felt that the most direct form of empowerment for these kids would be if they could see their work visually. We thought it would be cool if they could see their artwork appear on T-shirts. It would really bolster their self-confidence.
DO EITHER OF YOU HAVE FASHION OR DESIGN BACKGROUNDS?
No, I worked in corporate finance before this while my wife is a children’s counsellor. She’s currently pursuing her PhD in counselling.
THAT BEING THE CASE, WAS THE LEARNING CURVE VERY STEEP WHEN YOU FIRST STARTED THE BUSINESS?
Yes, it was very hard for us at first. We weren’t entrepreneurs. Rather, we had an employee’s attitude so we had to change our mindset. We also had to pick up new skills like building a website and how to make T-shirts.
During the first few months, we watched a lot of YouTube for guidance on these things. Then on weekends, we’d go out and source for materials. It was very challenging and daunting. I have no idea where we got the courage to do this given our lack of experience and expertise in this industry.
WAS THERE ALSO A LOT OF CAPITAL INVESTED?
We had to buy fabrics, to do the prototyping with no returns.
HOW ARE THE DESIGNS CHOSEN?
I’d like to emphasise that the kids are not put to work drawing things for T-shirts. It’s not like that at all. They do art as part of a learning programme and the designs come from the stories they create.
For example, we have a durian design that came from a boy who told us that Malaysia Day and durians are similar. Malaysia Day is when East and West Malaysia came together and durians are usually eaten together with friends and loved ones. We were surprised by his story and we adopted it for one of our T-shirt designs.
CAN YOU SHARE ANOTHER STORY THAT BECAME A T-SHIRT DESIGN?
Hany had created a lesson plan for kids to design their own calling. One of the kids drew a bicycle and said his calling was to become a national cyclist. We thought that it was so great that he could have such ambitions at a young age. When we were young, we never had anyone help us explore our internal calling!
YOU CONTRIBUTE 15 PER CENT BACK TO THE CHILDREN’S PROGRAMME. WHAT’S THE MONEY USED FOR?
This percentage goes towards four main initiatives: Hiring teachers, developing the EQ programme, buying stationeryfor the children and funding their field trips.
IT HAS BEEN TWO YEARS. HOW HAS THE BUSINESS BEEN SO FAR?
We’ve been growing 40 per cent to 50 per cent on a quarter on quarter basis.
IS YOUR MARKETING ALL DIGITAL?
For the first two quarters we did no digital marketing at all. It was all word of mouth but after that we started doing digital marketing: Facebook marketing, Google marketing. Again, we had no knowledge of that at all, so we watched a lot of YouTube to learn how to do it.
WILL YOU BE EXPANDING YOUR PRODUCT LINE?
Yes, we definitely want to. Perhaps we can make socks or maybe notepads and diaries featuring the children’s artwork.
WHY DO YOU THINK FOSTERING EQ IN KIDS IS SO IMPORTANT?
There’s this famous saying: IQ gets you hired; EQ gets you promoted. This is very true. Our education system is all about IQ but things like communication and leadership require good EQ. Frankly, I think it’s too late to teach EQ to adults. You need to foster good EQ in people when they’re young. Then they’ll grow up with good EQ and a bright future.