UAE: How a Filipino nanny with a monthly salary of Dh750 educated her 7 children and gave them a good life – News

She is the proud mother of a lawyer, civil engineer, teacher, accountant, agronomist, and aspiring architect and doctor

Longtime Filipino nanny Helen Mata Adducul was recently named Housekeeper of the Year for her devotion and dedication to her job. However, that’s just an added bonus. The real payoff, she says, is that through the years of hard work, she was able to send seven children to school.

One becomes a lawyer, the next a civil engineer; then a teacher, an accountant and an agronomist. The young man who is still studying aims to become an architect and a doctor.

This is the success story that many, if not all, Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) aspire to. In their homeland, they are known as “mga bagong bayani” or modern heroes because they had to leave their homes to secure their families’ futures. For them, working abroad is not an option but necessary for the well-being of their families.

For mothers like Adducul who are forced to leave their children to work abroad to care for another family, the pain and sacrifice is even greater.

However, once their children graduate from college, or own a small piece of land or a house, or a small business to make a decent living, those years of labor and living away from loved ones will be gone forever.

Adducul burst into tears as he took to the stage to receive the award from Michelle Quinto Guinto, Managing Director of CMG Group.

She beat 34 other finalists from a field of 1,500 candidates from Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the northern UAE to win the Household Manager of the Year award.

Guinto said the award goes to domestic workers who “work hard behind the scenes, but often without recognition.” They are “unsung heroes who selflessly dedicate their time, skills and love to ensure the smooth functioning of Emirati families”. Their efforts deserve our utmost respect and appreciation, and we applaud and salute them all. “

After the awards ceremony, Adducul spoke to Khaleej Times to share her story. Her family is from a Barangay Bagu in Pamplona City, Cagayan Province, about 430 kilometers northwest of Manila.

She first came to Dubai 13 years ago, in 2010, to work as a nanny for the same Indian family she is still employed by. She was a daycare teacher in her hometown, earning around P3,500 (Dh250) at the time. Her husband is a farmer with irregular and insufficient income.

They have seven children, the oldest is in his third year of college and studying to be a school teacher. Their second child (Frank Neal) is about to start college.

“He graduated from a science high school. He’s a bright student and he wants to be a lawyer, but we don’t have the resources to support him. I don’t want his talent to go to waste, and all his siblings are also” very good. So, that’s when I decided to work abroad,” Adducul said.

Adducul was hired directly from the Philippines and was initially paid Dh750 a month. “There are no days off — I’m not complaining,” Adukul said, adding that she “comes here to work and not to rest.”

Her employer used to live in Bur Dubai and she was tasked with caring for their two children – an 11-year-old boy and a 20-month-old baby girl.

Until now, Adducul is still working for the same family, her salary has more than tripled to Dh2,500 plus other benefits, and the employer-nanny relationship has not been on track.

She complained that she only ate leftovers and that she was not familiar with Indian food.

She recounts: “So, one day I just drank fresh milk and I got sick to my stomach. I was rushed to the hospital. The doctor asked what happened and I told him I was only eating leftover food. The doctor warned me my employer, and told her I deserved proper meals.

Adducul continues: “During the first few months, another problem I had with my employer was that my salary was always late. I couldn’t complain because I was afraid I would be fired. So, I made a plan: One day, I pretended to faint and dropped the phone I was holding on purpose, and my employer picked it up.”

“I’ve arranged for the person on the other end of the phone to say my employer isn’t paying me on time and I’m having to borrow money from everyone. My lady heard all this and she told me: ‘Helen, next time you No more borrowing, just ask for money'”.

Over the next few months, Adducul got on well with her employer. She also gained their trust, and after eight months her salary increased to Dh1,200 a month, five times what she paid as a daycare teacher.

But being a teacher doesn’t take away from Adducul. She noticed a lot of kids nearby, so she arranged an afternoon after-school class for them. Her initiative has been praised not only by her employer, but by the entire community. Being sociable paid off for Adducul, as everyone rallied to support her family in the Philippines when a powerful storm hit her hometown.

Adducul never complained about working as a nanny. After being away from her family for so long, the question on everyone’s mind is: “How did she raise her own children?”.

Open and appropriate communication is key, she said. “My wife gives me internet access, and when it’s not available, I can use a landline or cell phone to make regular calls and monitor my kids. I always make sure they are doing well in school,” Adducul said.

“My kids even joke that I’m a long-distance ‘tiger mom’. I’m really not a very strict parent, only invested in her kids getting excellent grades. For me, getting high grades is just a What I instill in them is the value of education, and I have been successful in that, even though I have been away from them for so many years. All my children attend state universities, and their tuition is free, which is also a It’s a blessing.”

“I fostered their passion for learning and now all five of my children are professionals and have steady jobs. Two young men who are still in school also aspire to be architects and doctors,” she added.

Adducul will celebrate her 56th birthday on July 4th, and after more than a decade away from her family, it’s time to come home for good.

She said she had saved enough to live a stable, relatively comfortable life at home. Her husband has become an entrepreneur, running a home-based food processing business. They also purchased a farm where they intend to retire.

“I’m planning to finish the remaining few months of my contract and then I’ll go home,” she shared, adding: “But it’s also hard for me to leave my employer and their kids because they’ve become effectively mine. So does the family.”

To ease anxiety, Adducul’s family — her seven children and her husband — plan to travel to Dubai to pick her up in September. “My family wanted to be with me when I came home to ease the pain of saying goodbye,” she said.

“I have to say goodbye not only to my family who have supported me and my family over the years, but also to all the friends here – who have been a blessing to me – and to Dubai, which is like paradise to me. I found my luck and happiness here.”