As a mother of two young children, Meredyth Kathleen Sneed understands the challenges many women must deal with in order to secure a better future for themselves and their families. It also gives more purpose to her work as a monitoring & evaluation manager at Daughters Of Tomorrow.
Having worked as a consultant in the US, Meredyth specialised in strategic planning and monitoring and evaluation for various social service organisations. She helped these organisations understand the data collected through tools such as surveys, so they could identify issues and formulate strategic changes to address them.
But Meredyth, 35, wanted to do more: “I rarely saw the results of our work; I often never heard how it went, or even if the recommendations worked at all. I wanted to help people more directly, so was drawn to a charity that served women.”
After moving to Singapore about four years ago with her husband, who works in academia here, she joined Daughters Of Tomorrow.
Daughters Of Tomorrow helps lower-income women acquire sustained employment and social mobility. Founded in 2014, it has supported more than 1,100 women in Singapore through skills training, job bridging and befriending programmes. These women come from families that earn between $200 and $650 per month and struggle to break out of unemployment and poverty.
Among these programmes is Broaden Horizons, which Meredyth oversees too. Launched since July 2021, it offers professional support and guidance to young women so they can access jobs with better pay and career growth.
She says: “Growing up in Oklahoma, I saw many people in my family, school and community who never managed to get ahead despite being stably employed. That’s why enabling others to break out of poverty and earn a living wage has always been a central concern for me.”
