about us

In every child, there is a treasure trove of undiscovered interests and abilities. For some children, however, the opportunities to develop, learn and find their strengths are not always readily available.

It began in 2013, when we encountered Primary School children from lower-income families in Singapore who could not recognise the alphabet, write their own names nor count accurately to 20. Tracing back, we realised that these children were already ‘behind’ their better-off peers in pre-school! We decided that we could help to close this gap.

We started by developing and trialing an intervention-based literacy and numeracy volunteer-based programme with a charity in Commonwealth. This became our flagship Early Learning Programme (ELP) for 6-8 year olds. As the ELP grew, we designed, “road-tested” and improved our teaching materials through the 1000s of lessons that were conducted. We started with physical teaching tools, then designed levelled workbooks and developed a whole slew of digital (Powerpoint-based) materials during COVID.

We created “Learning Vessels” as a social enterprise to provide these learning products (our labour of love!) to parents, educators and other charities that we believe could benefit from them. The profits we generate go towards longer-term support for our charity programmes. Through our partner, EDIS Cares, we have also worked to meet other critical needs for children or youth from other age groups. Since 2014, we have had the privilege to work with over 8 charity partners and have impacted close to 1,200 underprivileged children to date!

Meet the Team

Hsin Ee

Hsin-Ee completed her undergraduate degree at Carnegie Mellon University on an Economic Development Board (EDB) scholarship. Thereafter she worked for over 10 years at EDB and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). She joined EDIS in 2014 to start the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility effort, EDIS Cares. As part of this, she developed charity-based programmes for underprivileged children, which have since impacted over 400 children. She has focused particularly on the Early Learning Programme, where she co-developed curriculum and materials, trained volunteers, and tested and taught children from underprivileged families. Hsin-Ee is trained in supporting children with reading and math difficulties, and has 3 active boys.

Sharon

Sharon is an Educational Therapist. She started her teaching career as an NIE-trained teacher and later specialized in Dyslexia Intervention through Dyslexia Action UK. She has taught for over 13 years, with the majority of her teaching career focused on remediating underachieving children, or those diagnosed with learning difficulties like specific language disorder and dyslexia. She is a gifted educator and has been able to help many children learn to read and spell successfully, even getting As, despite their learning challenges. Sharon has two daughters. Her greatest joy, besides her family, is to see the children she teaches get their “ah ha!” moment when things fall into place and they begin to read!

April

After completing her degree in Biochemistry in National University of Singapore, April started work in A*STAR's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology. She then trained in in-vivo pharmacology in a biotech company in Paris before returning to Singapore to complete her PhD in Biological Sciences at NUS under an A*STAR staff scholarship. She worked as a post-doctoral researcher in Genome Institute of Singapore before joining Hsin-Ee at EDIS to expand its programmes, in particular the ELP, to multiple charities in Singapore. April was responsible primarily for the start-up and operational oversight of a ELP site in Bukit Merah, and co-developed teaching materials for the children. April is a mother of two boys and a 7 year-old girl.

Farah

Farah trained in Visual Communications and Business Management. She has experience teaching preschoolers and older children in academic and sports programmes. She manages our marketing and social media efforts, supports the development of new teaching materials, and runs her own business designing original paper prints! She is excited to be contributing her skills and experience to Learning Vessels and hopes to impact more children.

Meet the Team

Hsin Ee

Sharon

April

Farah

Our Past Members