Four leading Australian hairdressers traveled to Manila, Philippines to train 88 locals over one week through the charity organization Hair Aid. The hairdressers helped teach valuable haircutting skills to impoverished families, empowering them to earn an income and support themselves through cutting hair in their own communities. Bernie Craven, founder of Aussie Hair Guru Online Training, has been involved with Hair Aid for three years and sees the training program growing and allowing more families to lift themselves out of poverty each year.

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MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 19th February 2015
Australia’s Leading Hairdressers Save Lives
Hair Aid is an organisation that teaches valuable skills to impoverished families in Quezon City,
Manila, enabling them to breakthrough poverty. At the forefront of the organisation is hairdressing, a
skill that empowers participants to gain employment and provide basic food and water for their
families.
The January 2015 team included four of Australia’s leading hairdressing professionals who travelled
to Manilla and helped train 88 locals across a one week program. The team included international
and multi-award winning hairdressers Caterina Di Biase,
Benni Tognini, Emiliano Vitale and Bernie Craven.
Highly regarded in the industry, these hairdressers have
offered not only their time, knowledge and expertise in
hairdressing, but also enthusiasm and support in
fundraising for the project. They also assisted in
successfully reaching the fundraising goals needed to
complete the trip in January, which will help many local
families break out of the poverty cycle.
Bernie Craven, Founder and Owner Operator of Aussie
Hair Guru Online Training, has been associated with the
Hair Aid project for three years. He has watched it grow
and leads the other hairdressers during the project. “The
training is nothing like training we do in Australia” Bernie said. “We go out into the shanty town and
slum communities and work in the same conditions where these courageous people live”.

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“The area we worked in has 330,000 families, with, on average six
children in each family” Mr Craven said. ‘They live on the edge of a
rubbish dump, and have little or no employment opportunities”.
The team worked with thirteen other volunteers across multiple sites
in the region during the training week, in locations such as church
halls, basketball courts and in shanty
towns.
“It really is as raw as it can get when you are over there” Bernie said. “You are working directly with
the people that benefit from the training”. The training is designed to be delivered in a five day block
and at the end of it participants can do haircuts for boys, men, and long cuts for ladies and girls.
This provides them with enough skills to immediately begin cutting hair and making money.
Through the support of sponsors’ hair cutting packs are made up and left at secure locations to
allow participants to borrow the resources needed to cut hair. The hair cutting packs are managed
by community members and this further empowers the community to be responsible for the
sustainability of the project.
Each year the sponsors grown and Hair Aid is very grateful to EverEscents Organic Hair Care, for
being the major sponsor.
Equipment sponsors have also grown with Aussie Hair Guru, Excellent Edges Scissors, Norris Hair
Supplies, Wahl Clippers, Action Sharpening Scissors, Denman Brushes, Shortcuts, Gavin and Jo
Orb Distribution Scissor Empire, Zen Master Scissors, GHD, EasyDry, and Heading Out Academy,
Contour College and Sharon Blain Education all generously donating equipment and resources for
the project.
To find out more about our industry professionals and their work, or to donate visit
www.facebook.com/hairaidaustralia.
Ends.
Media contact: Selina Tomasich, Project Leader Hair Aid, +61 4 23 923 434,
selinatomasich@outlook.com
More Information: Hair Aid W: www.hairaid.org.au F: www.facebook.com/hairaidaustralia
Benni Tognini
Hair Aid 2015