SOLS Foundation Reviews

SOLS 24/7 is, simply put, a farce. It survives due to the fact that the CEO gets access to very influencing people in Malaysia, who fund his programs, which are then run by some very good people, who work there solely because they are trapped in a contractual mess (I'll explain this below). You will likely run into a vacancy for SOLS in one of the international job sites. It will sound very professional and well run. You will have a couple of tests, a couple of interviews, again nothing too suspicious. You will be sold this idea of changing the world, and you will likely sign a contract and book your ticket to Kuala Lumpur (that you have to finance). When you get to SOLS HQ, you will start seeing where things are shaky. You will be put in a dorm with +10 people (the guys' dorm is significantly better than the girls'), understand that there are also about 30 scholars sharing the facilities, meaning an excess of 50 people sharing everything. You will be given 3 meals a day, but all in VERY limited amounts (ie 1 tiny piece of chicken and rice), with repeats not possible - this makes a big chunk of people have to go out for food, which of course you have to pay for yourself. You will be given training, but if you are over 22, you will likely feel that training is a waste of time. They give you a couple of days of language training (for Malay, a language that many Malaysians don't even speak, and that you're expected to remember in two days), and the rest is just bureaucracy, including how to fill reports, take photos, collect receipts, when to inform people of this and that. Nothing difficult, nothing that someone with a bit of common sense would need a week for. You will then eventually be told where you're going to be deployed to. This can range from paradise-like islands to the middle of the jungle to big cities. You will be given a phone and a laptop, and will have to sign release forms that state that you are to fully repay them, should something happen (including if they're stolen) - the figures are about 4 times what you will be paid a month, and are simply ridiculous given most electronics are refurbished and how much they are actually paying you to start with. When on the ground, you are to use this super basic English teaching program, using manuals full of typos and grammatical mistakes to make people pass a test. If they actually learn English is irrelevant - they simply have to pass the final test, so that SOLS can then say that people are passing the test, therefore the program is working. You will also have to actively recruit people to join the program, and you will be given very clear numbers that you have to reach. You are in theory supposed to do more, but getting people to pass the test is all that matters. Again, it's all numbers oriented, and you will start to feel dumb, given how basic the program is. The living conditions will be appalling, most likely. Run down houses, with little conditions, including electricity and sanitation. You will likely have to share the bedroom with whoever you're working with, for the whole time you're there. The money you make will barely be enough to cover living expenses. You will also have very limited holidays, and given you have to have a certain number of students, you will have to do multiple sessions of the same class a day, and likely a few early money and later in the evening. There are to be no free days except those stipulated by law, and in most places you will also have to work at least one of the days on the weekend, so you will be stuck there basically all the time. Should you have a position at HQ, you will understand how things are run. There are only a handful of key individuals, all selected because they are people the CEO can trust (ie doesn't mean they're any good. The CEO openly assumes that, if you get to know him - that he doesn't trust people, doesn't believe in democracy, and carefully selects those around him based on trust). These people therefore have a very unhealthy approach to work, wanting to impress the CEO. You will have no privacy, and will be judged constantly, even if there's very little work to do in HQ (complaints about boredom are an everyday affair). The CEO, get this right, gets people to SPY on others, and ask how they feel about this and that. Eventually, you will understand you are living in a big-brother kind of scenario, and there is nobody you can really trust, which disrupts the whole work environment. You will also be in a very remote part of KL, meaning you can't really go to many places, and you see a lot of people really struggling to deal with it all. Now, here comes the problem - you can't really leave. If you are to be a nuisance, they have it written, on the contract you signed, that they can just tell you to go, if in the first month (you will also not be paid during this time). From the second month onwards, you will get your limited salary, but the big "bonus" will only be paid upon completion of the contract, so you will likely not have enough to afford your ticket back home until you're paid that, making a big chunk of the staff just stay there patiently waiting for that time to come. This is all very cleverly devised so that they are in control, not you. Your suggestions will likely be dismissed 90% of the time, no matter how innovative, with people saying "this is how things are done", and you will find that nobody really has the guts to talk to the big and mighty CEO, which is also very confusing. I am saying this with all my heart, find something else, somewhere else. You will likely meet nice people, but SOLS is honestly a stop over for people who are either very naive (which can happen to us all), with very little self esteem, those who are then stuck there and can't really go anywhere until paid that lump sum at the end, or those who feel like they are to feed their ego with an irrelevant position but that they think is incredible. You will hear stories of people who were dismissed for no apparent reason, of those who left without ever saying why, of those who had nervous breakdowns and symptoms of depression and other of the like. The nice people you may meet are secondary, as it is like meeting someone nice in prison - they may be nice, but you're still in a terrible place. On top of it all, you will be asked to chip in, you will be told your super low salary is because it's an NGO and there's no money and whatnot, but then the CEO drives a Maserati, has a garage with at least 25 cars, brags he's a millionaire, and even has consoles and video games in the office. There's also a very weird connection with the Baha'i faith, almost intrusive, but then falling into the fallacy of preaching something and not acting in a way that's compatible with what is preached.