Wearing the Crown for the First Time Proved That Dreams Are Worth Chasing By Rosie Labasan
I joined VODW's classes chasing a dream, and hoping to meet and connect with more people along the way. Over a year and a half across ESOL, IT, Mediacom, Body Mind and Wellness, and Financial Literacy, that dream took shape one lesson at a time. I began my journey with a full range of emotions, nervous, excited, happy, curious, and even a little unsure, an honest mix that many domestic workers stepping into a classroom for the first time will recognise in themselves.
Among the many skills I picked up, I learned to recover a Facebook account, copy and paste documents, and navigate Google Maps, small digital tools that carry outsized importance for someone building independence and confidence in a new country. During my sessions, I felt reconnected with myself, watched my stress lift, built confidence, grew more resilient, felt healed, and experienced a genuine sense of belonging, and every part of the experience stayed with me.
The shift in how I see myself is something I can only describe as a lot of things changing, a phrase that leaves room for all the small, cumulative ways a person grows without always being able to name each one individually. What I can name clearly is the joy of graduation day, when I wore a crown and received recognition for the very first time in my life. It is a detail worth sitting with, the first time, a milestone that speaks to how rarely domestic workers are given the chance to be celebrated so visibly and so warmly.
My gratitude toward my teachers runs deep, and it doubles as my hope for the future too, an appreciation for everything I have learned that I carry forward as motivation to keep growing.
My story is a gentle but powerful reminder of what VODW's classes offer beyond any single skill, the chance to feel truly proud, truly celebrated, and truly seen, often for the first time in a domestic worker's life in the UK. That sense of dignity is exactly what VODW continues to fight to protect and expand through its campaigns for the right to change employer, to renew a visa, to settle, and to belong fully and legally in the country I now call home.
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