Ms. Dipa Swaminathan

Dipa Swaminathan is a Harvard educated lawyer, a wife and mother of 2 teenagers, owns a rescue dog but is perhaps best known as the founder of ItsRainingRaincoats. She took up the cause of migrant workers in Singapore at a time when it was not glamorous, recognising that they are largely invisible heroes toiling hard to build Singapore’s skyscrapers, dig underground tunnels, prune 30 feet trees and keep the city clean, for low wages while often enduring difficult living conditions. It all began in 2014 when she was driving home and encountered 2 migrant workers caught in a thunderstorm without rain cover in the street where she lived. The story of Dipa taking them home in her car to give them shelter and saving one of them a few months later from a suicide charge went viral. This eventually led to the birth of ItsRainingRaincoats (IRR) in 2015.

IRR has come a long way since then. Dipa has gone from 2 volunteers in 2015 to more than 1000 volunteers now, and more importantly, IRR has galvanised the community towards this cause.