You have signed up with mrsHomestay, and put up a basic profile. This is your personal page, and very soon you will receive a special URL & online badge which you can add to your email signature, or blog. What do you do next? Here are some tips to make it easier for international students and their parents to find you.

TIP 1 : UPLOAD YOUR PICTURES

This has to be the FIRST commandment Every international student and including their parents want to know the condition of the homestay, amenities near the homestay and if you live in a private condo, what are the facilities available. You would too, if you are sending your child abroad. You want to know she is safe and living in a good home.

This is so important to us that the next updates of the mrsHomestay will give preference to profiles with pictures, and display such on the DASHBOARD area when the student or parent logs in.

Some pictures suggestions,

• Show pictures of the room, living area
• Take some pictures of the neighbourhood - parks, SAFRA club, swimming pool etc
• Please don’t be shy, show pictures of yourself (guardian) if you can.
• Upload pictures of other students you host, of course with their permission.

We are extremely excited to launch the mrsHomestay portal. There are several new features which we have put into the site to help students and guardians find each other. More new upcoming features are planned, and our calendar of incremental updates are planned all way till end 2008.

If you are our partnered hosts reading this post, this is an excellent platform for you to showcase your homestay and guardianship services. We are building more tools on this site to help you connect with students and their parents in Asia.

For the international student and their parents, these new features are here to make it easier to browse our database of guardians and homestay hosts, and in a manner which is safe and transparent.

Powerful Advance Search Facility

View Recommended Homestay/Guardian Profiles

Brand New Guardian / Homestay Profiles

Surf a growing community of Singapore homestay guardians. These guardians open their homes for homestay and provide other services such as laundry, and meals.

Tools to Help You Remember

Add-To-Favourites. As you browse through many profiles of guardians and homestays, you may want to bookmark some of those profiles to allow easy access.

We are continuing to build more features to help international students and their parents connect with Singapore guardians and homestay families. In the next few months, we will enable mrsHomestay.com with other asian languages.

Please feel free to add your comments.

Homestay is a popular choice for tourists looking to experience the everyday buzz of a typical Singaporean heartlander. The home cooked food and the opportunity to experience how we live our day to day to where we shop adds up for these non average tourists. However this is not my subject, at least not the tourists no.

If you are a parent, undecided between choosing a hostel or homestay accommodation for your child I hope this post helps

Why Choose Homestay In Singapore ?

Homestay provides the perfect environment where your child can enjoy family care, love and attention. It is important that during the absence of parents, your child can continue to receive attentive care and emotional support from a guardian - a foster parent.

Attentive Care, Family Support

In a hostel where the ratio of a guardian to students is typically high, it is a challenge for a guardian to develop strong bonds with every child. In a homestay, it is different. The guardian who is also the homestay host has many opportunities to develop a healthy relationship with the student. This can happen when spending family times together such as family goes out shopping, or during meal times and even special outings on the weekends.

Feel Right At Home with Home Cook Food

Not to be overlooked is home cook food. Your child may have special diet that requires special attention or simply a special touch put in by the guardian to prepare a home country dish just for the child. I know of a guardian in our programme who prepared a korean dish certain day of the week just so the korean student will light up with delight. Having studied abroad and in my past life, sent on short job stints overseas, I totally appreciate home cooked food - Home cooked food never fails to warm your heart.

Monitoring and Assess Development

An important role for a guardian, on top of providing for the students basic needs such as food and lodging, family environment is to provide guidance to the child in decision making. Frequently this can be done in consultation with the parent. The guardian may also periodically feedback to the parent about the student’s progress in school.

About mrsHomestay Student Services Programme

Our programme is designed for international students below 18 years old. The focus of the programme has been to work with Singapore homestay partners and parents of students so that the student has an enriching experience studying in Singapore as well as helping him/her achieve the original intent of him/her coming to Singapore.

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