Nearer the Sky: Generosity

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Generosity Generosity is one of the four virtues enshrined in the school motto and the girls of SCGS have certainly taken it to heart. There is no shortage of examples of old girls who have contributed their time, money, resources and expertise to help others.

They have all done so in unique ways.

Some, like Euleen Goh, the former Chairperson of the SCGS Board, have been generous with their time in contributing to schools and non-profit organisations. Monique Heah has been working with para-equestrians to help them achieve their Olympic dreams while Tan Wan Joo has been helping women through various women’s organisations.

Other old girls have focussed on helping disadvantaged groups in Singapore.

Li Woon Churdboonchart set up a non-profit to help the poor, the elderly and youth while Pamela Chng founded a social enterprise that uses coffee to help marginalised women.

While most focus their efforts on assisting the needy in Singapore, some have set their sights on different targets. Elizabeth Tan, for example, set up a non-profit to bring healthcare to remote Himalayan villages. Chew Gek Hiang, on the other

hand, decided to focus her efforts on man’s best friend, doing what she can to help stray dogs in Singapore.

These women are undoubtedly only the tip of the iceberg. Every day, SCGS girls demonstrate generosity, kindness and charity in ways large and small. Not everyone can start a social enterprise, fund a scholarship or set up a charity and it is not necessary to do so. As one prominent old girl notes, we are not all called to be like Mother Teresa, but that is alright; we can still reach out to those in need. SCGS drills into its girls that generosity is a core value, and from the examples in this book, it is clearly a lesson that the girls have taken to heart.

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Not surprisingly, education is a popular cause. Kan Shook Wah started a scholarship to help disabled students studying at the LASALLE College of the Arts or the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts while Audrey Looi has set up a charity to teach visually impaired students how to continue their education in mainstream schools despite their disability.

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Euleen Goh

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After Halftime, working to create Significance In 2005, Euleen Goh (SGGS: 1962 - 1971) was among the top corporate leaders in Singapore. Just 50 at the time, she was the Chief Executive of Standard Chartered Singapore, a position she arrived at after heading global units in the bank. That was also the year she was named Woman of the Year by Her World Magazine because of her numerous achievements. Then in 2006, Euleen’s life took a different turn.

Courtesy of Euleen Goh

She stepped down from her post in Standard Chartered and walked away from daily corporate life. While she has since gone on to sit on numerous boards, even chairing some of them, she has eschewed the corner office for over a decade now.

Management. She is the former rector of Cinnamon College of the National University of Singapore and the former Chairperson of the Board of Governors of NorthLight School. And of course, she was on the Board of SCGS for 12 years, over half of that time as its Chairperson.

Today, Euleen is the non-executive Chairperson of SATS, and she currently sits on the boards of companies such as DBS Group Holdings, DBS Bank, Singapore Health Services and Royal Dutch Shell.

Her contributions extended beyond for-profit organisations.

She is also the Chairperson of DBS Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the DBS Bank, and a Trustee of the Singapore

Institute of International Affairs Endowment Fund. She was also previously Chairperson of the Singapore International Foundation and a Trustee of Temasek Trust.

Although Euleen has spent a lifetime in the financial services industry, education is a topic that is close to her heart. She is currently the Chairperson of the Governing Council of the Singapore Institute of

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Courtesy of DBS Bank

Euleen shares that a major catalyst for her decision to step off the corporate ladder was the book Halftime, by Christian author Bob Buford. ‘Halftime’ refers to the pause in between two halves in games like football. According to Buford, there comes a time in one’s life where one reaches the transition point between the first half of one’s life and the second half. At halftime, you should think about what you want to do about the second half of your life. The book’s theme, From Success to Significance, captures the idea that the second half of one’s life should be focussed on creating a lasting impact.

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Describing the book as a “wake-up call,” Euleen says that reading the book made her realise that she was at halftime and needed to think about how she wanted to make a meaningful impact. A staunch Christian, she believes that she has been blessed with many privileges and that she had an obligation to share her blessings.

When she left Standard Chartered, she did not quite know what the future would hold. She just knew that she would “step out of executive life and do something quite different, I wasn’t sure what.” However, she knew that she wanted to do something for society. “I wanted to spend some time giving my time and effort to the local community.”

The decision to leave full-time corporate life was not easy to make, she says. She prayed a lot about the decision and believes the whole effort was “hugely God-led.”

In time, she found her calling, which is to use her knowledge,

expertise and network to help companies and non-profit organisations succeed. Based on her background, she has obviously much to contribute to the boards of corporations such as DBS, Shell and CapitaLand.

However, because she wants to have a social impact as well, she devotes an equal portion of her time to non-profit organisations.

She describes DBS Foundation as her “pride and joy”. DBS had wanted the bank to be a good corporate citizen and during a board meeting, it was decided that a foundation would give focus and purpose to the bank’s efforts.

Euleen had been a big backer of the idea so when the board decided to set up the foundation, she was tapped to chair it.

In February 2014, DBS Bank announced the setting up of the $50 million foundation to help social enterprises. Today, it gives out about $1 million a year to different socially-focused organisations in Singapore and Asia.

One of the first to receive a grant was Zaya Learning Labs, an Indian social enterprise with a vision for delivering high-quality education using WiFi-enabled tablets. The foundation visited the schools who have adopted this and found that the system to be a great success. “The children love it because it’s interactive,” says Euleen. The system has also

Bettr Barista Coffee Academy, started by SCGS alumna Pamela Chng, is another beneficiary supported by the foundation.

Bettr Barista helps marginalised women and youth-at-risk by

Courtesy of Euleen Goh

teaching them how to be a barista, and then helping them find employment. Apart from providing the grant, the bank also encourages its customers to use Bettr Barista. It has even led the way by getting Bettr Barista to operate a takeaway coffee joint at the bank’s Plaza Singapura branch.

Euleen is also proud of her relationship with NorthLight School, a secondary school for students who are academically weak. She was the longest serving member of the board, having joined before the school was opened in 2006,leaving early in 2018.

At the time, NorthLight was an experiment. To qualify, students would have had to fail the Primary School Leaving Examination twice. The school would focus on hands-on learning of subjects with a practical orientation. It has deliberate emphasis on building character and self-esteem, that

would help students who have a history of failure to overcome their self-doubt and achieve their potential.

With the blessing of the SCGS Board, Euleen joined Northlight.

“I was at the first Open House and the rest is history.” NorthLight School has since become a model for similar schools in Singapore.

For NorthLight, Euleen provided the bridge to the private sector, thus helping the school attain additional resources and work experience though internships and various other forms of support.

From her experience working with non-profit organisations, Euleen is of the belief that everyone can play a part to help those in need.

“God doesn’t ask everyone of us to be a Mother Teresa, because not all of us can be a Mother Teresa,” she says. “If you cannot be a Mother Teresa, that’s fine; be what you are, but think about how you can be what you are. And

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helped to cut down truancy. Thus far, Zaya has managed to reach almost one million students with its tablets.

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reach out to people in need.”

One important way that Euleen has reached out to help has been by chairing the SCGS Board, a role she held for about seven years before passing over the baton to Jennie Chua, the current Chairperson.

To qualify for the IP, SCGS had to demonstrate to the Ministry of Education that its girls had the academic capacity because the IP is only offered to top schools.

However, academic quality alone was not enough. As SCGS is relatively small, it could not, on its own, have offered the IP. “Hence we had to convince MOE that it would be worthwhile having the IP for the school but that we would combine with others.”

In taking over the role in 2011, Euleen managed to achieve a number of firsts. She was the first member of the alumni to become chairperson, and she was the first woman to step into the role. Prior In the end, SCGS persuaded to her, the board had always been the Education Ministry to allow the school to join Catholic High chaired by philanthropists, all of them men.

Looking back over her time on the board between 2006 and 2018, Euleen believes that one of her main achievements was helping to get the school permission to run its own Integrated Programme (IP) in 2013 so that SCGS girls could, if they wanted to, skip taking the O-Level examinations and go straight into Eunoia Junior College after completing Secondary Four.

Courtesy of SCGS

School and CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School. IP students from these three schools can now go straight to Eunoia Junior College, which began operations in 2017.

To succeed, the SCGS board convinced MOE that its girls would bring something to the mix.

“We had to convince them that SCGS brings a significant element of diversity,” says Euleen.

According to her, it was important for SCGS to offer the IP as it would give the girls choice. “For those who want to go for academic rigour, and who are able to, they

have that choice. For those who say, I want a different pathway, I want to do my O-Level, I want a different horizon of choices, they have that.

“By having the two, it allows different types of students in our mix.”

She says her time on the Board has been extremely fulfilling.

“I have seen the school evolve and yet hold firm to its values of inspiring girls to stand out and make a difference, to care for the community and to give and serve

generously. It’s a school from which I have been blessed to have had a decade to learn and grow.”

Euleen’s involvement with the Board of SCGS is important to her because her own time in the school had left such big imprint on her. She was on the netball team and had joined the Girl Guides as well and in fact, had enjoyed her time at Emerald Hill so much she would stay in school the whole day. Those experiences were valuable in shaping her into the person she is today, she says.

“Each activity taught me the spirit of collaborating with my friends around me, values of persevering through ups and downs in life and taking responsibility.

“Both the school and my parents gave me a lot of space and trust to grow and try out everything.”

She also fondly recalls the familylike atmosphere. “The teachers were caring, coaching and generous with their time.”

The friendships she made in school have lasted and she says that her school years “will always have a special place in my heart and in my life.”

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Courtesy of SCGS

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Monique Heah

Riding to the Aid of the Disabled

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At the 2012 Paralympic Games, three para-equestrian riders were part of the contingent of athletes who proudly represented Singapore in London. That the three – Laurentia Tan, Gemma Rose Foo (an alumna of SCGS) and Maximillian Tan – were at the Games was thanks to their hard work, dedication, and discipline. They also had a bit of help from their team manager, Monique Heah, a fellow SCGS alumna.

Courtesy of Monique Heah

The job of team manager for the Singapore Para-Equestrian Team at the Paralympics may be a background role, but is a vital one. The team manager ensures that the entire team – from riders, to coaches and grooms, and even the horses – are ready to take part in international competitions and Games. She oversees all the logistics involved, from ensuring that the veterinary protocols are in place so the horses can travel, to fulfilling the needs of coaches and grooms for travel, making sure that all the necessary equipment is available, and even handles the booking of hotel rooms.

With Monique’s assistance and the generous support of individuals from the equestrian community, the Singapore team managed to qualify for the London Games in December 2011, about eight months before the Games were scheduled to begin.

Before the Singapore Para-Equestrian Team had a dedicated team manager, they were struggling in their quest to qualify for the Paralympics, not for lack of skill, but due in part to poor administrative and logistical support.

Eventually, the Equestrian Federation of Singapore decided that the athletes needed a

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Courtesy of Monique Heah

Monique’s association with Singapore’s para-equestrian athletes began informally back in 2008. At the time, she held the post of Honorary Secretary of the Equestrian Federation of Singapore. The federation was working to prepare Laurentia for the Paralympic Games in Beijing that year. Based in the United dedicated team manager at the helm, and Monique (SCGS: 1973 - Kingdom, Laurentia is a para1980) was asked if she would take equestrienne with cerebral palsy on the job as a volunteer. Without and profound deafness. hesitation, she agreed. “I am Monique’s direct involvement passionate about the sport, and during the Beijing Paralympic these guys really needed help,” she said. “Knowing that there was Games (during which the equestrian events were held in already an amazing coaching Hong Kong) was limited. She team in place and a really driven described herself as more of team of riders, it was an easy a spectator. decision to make.”

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It was a good year to be a spectator though. That year, in winning two bronze medals, Laurentia became the first Singaporean to win a Paralympic medal, and also became the first rider from Asia to win a medal of any sort.

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“I had a really amazing experience,” recalls Monique. “To see the Singapore flag going up during the medal ceremony… no words can really describe it.”

Following that, she continued to be involved with the team, but on an informal, ad-hoc basis. It was only after she was asked to take on the role of team manager that Monique seized the reins to ensure that all the team’s administrative details were taken care of.

That is how, in December 2011, Monique found herself in a chilly arena in Cervia, Italy, praying that Singapore’s three para-equestrian athletes would do well enough to qualify. In the end, they did, but not without some drama along the way.

That was a memorable day for her. Donkeys braying outside the venue were unnverving the

horses, making them hard to control, and the cold weather did not help. Several riders, including Laurentia, fell off. However, she persevered, got back on her horse and won her event, and along the way, ensured that the Singapore team would qualify for the Paralympic Games in London.

That the Singapore team qualified for the Paralympics was a tremendous achievement, says Monique. Many Paralympic athletes were already riders before meeting with an accident or illness, she noted, while all the Singapore riders – Laurentia, Gemma and Max – came to riding through therapy, which put them at a distinct disadvantage.

raise additional funds through the equestrian community to pay for new apparel and tack for the team. Once in London, she was the one who managed the In addition, qualifying a team for a major event like the Paralympics schedules, cracked the whip, and ensured that everyone was on their very first try was virtually ready for their respective events. unheard of, she says.

While they did not attain team It was only when their qualification medals, Laurentia would go on to win a bronze and silver medal in was in the bag with their scores London as Singapore’s only medal from Cervia, that the Singapore winner that year. team was able to obtain funding from the Singapore Disability Sports Council and the Singapore Monique has been with the National Paralympic Council. This Singapore Para-Equestrian Team, ever since, helping them qualify helped tremendously, as prior to that, only Laurentia was receiving for, and then serving as the team funding. Even so, Monique helped manager at the Paralympic Games

Image credit to Patricia Quek

Today, when she is not working at her family’s landscaping company, Monique is working with the Singapore team as a volunteer for the Singapore Disability Sports Council, to help them qualify for the Tokyo Games in 2020. It is a role she takes on willingly, despite the fact that it is a significant commitment, involving an investment of time and money from which she will not directly benefit from.

Working with Singapore’s para-equestrian athletes and the experience of being at the Paralympic Games has renewed her dedication to this unique breed of athletes. “I’ll go the extra mile for these kids,” she says.

“Seeing their determination and for them to do their best is reward in itself for me, and I’ll do what I can to help them achieve it.”

Image credit to Patricia Quek

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in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. It was a less successful outing for the Singapore team that time round, with the athletes being plagued by injuries in the lead-up to the Games. One rider, Gemma, fell and ruptured her spleen five months before the Games, which forced her to take a three-month break from riding. Laurentia was also injured in a fall which caused nerve damage; however, she elected to delay surgery until after the Games, which allowed Singapore to field a team.

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Tan Wan Joo

Champion of the Elderly and the Vulnerable Few people look forward to taking the stairs. Imagine then walking up to the top of Singapore’s tallest hotel, 73 floors high. Now imagine doing it as a middle-aged woman who has spent her life working in an office.

That is exactly what Tan Wan Joo did, back in the early 1990s, in order to raise funds to build a new hospital.

Wan Joo was a member of the Zonta Club of Singapore, a professional women’s service organisation, and the club was raising money to build St Luke’s Hospital for the Elderly (now known as St Luke’s Hospital). The club organised the climbathon and Wan Joo, together with a group of other women and children — braved the 68-storey climb from the fifth floor to the top of what was then the Westin Stamford (now known as Swissotel the Stamford).

Courtesy of Tan Wan Joo

Courtesy of Zonta Club of Singapore

and later its rebranding and renovation.

Today, the 243-bed hospital in Bukit Batok cares for 2,000 inpatients and another 2,000 outpatients each year and is well known for the quality of its geriatric care.

On top of her main responsibilities, Wan Joo also became involved in St Luke’s Eldercare, which was originally an arm of the hospital that focussed on providing social day care facilities for the elderly.

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“I was the last one on the staircase valuable experience in the and all of them were yelling ‘You healthcare industry. can make it! You can make it!’” she recalls. “I practically crawled up!”

She did such a good job as a volunteer that the chief executive Wan Joo’s effort illustrates the asked her to join the hospital so lengths she will go through to help that she could be on equal terms the less fortunate in Singapore. with the other department heads.

She did not want to be paid for After raising money for St Luke’s, her work but he insisted that she she became more deeply involved receive a salary. with the hospital and joined as a volunteer, doing corporate In the end, she accepted the job development. Wan Joo was as part-time director of corporate uniquely placed to help because development, and would go in to she was the former General the office three days a week. She Manager of Raffles Medical spent the next 10 years in Group and Thomson Medical this job, where she was involved Centre and as a result, had in marketing the new hospital,

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Over the years, the eldercare arm has evolved beyond just organising social activities to offer maintenance day care, day rehabilitation, dementia care, nursing care, respite care and wellness activities.

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At St Luke’s Eldercare, Wan Joo was involved in the expansion of its services as well as its spread geographically. From four centres in 2001, St Luke’s Eldercare today has 22 facilities around Singapore.

Wan Joo retired from the hospital in 2014, but she still sits on its Board. She also continues to sit on the Board of St Luke’s Eldercare .

In addition to her work at St Luke’s, Wan Joo has also been deeply involved in various women’s organisations in Singapore. Between 2007 and 2009, she was the President of the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations (SCWO) the national coordinating body of women’s organisations in Singapore. Comprising more than 50 member organisations, the SCWO sits on various government and inter-ministry committees, as well as regional and international bodies where it contributes views in the areas of family, women,

Image credit to Singapore Management University

and gender equality. For her contribution to the SCWO, Wan Joo was awarded the Public Service Medal, Pingat Bakit Masyarakat (PBM) at the 2010 National Day Awards.

them mentors to help them navigate life. Project Pari has helped over 220 girls since it was formed in 2008.

While she is closely associated with the Zonta Club, the SCWO Wan Joo is also a Board member and St Luke’s, Wan Joo has of the Zonta Club, where she is also been involved with other currently in charge of Leadership organisations as well. She was Development. She is also the on the Board of Wings (the Chairperson of Project Pari, which Women’s Initiative for Ageing provides girls from secondary Successfully) and the Breast school a monthly allowance, offers Cancer Foundation. In both training in life skills and assigns these organisations, she was a founder-member.

She believes that her years in the close-knit atmosphere of SCGS helped shape her into the person she is today. “The school was like my second home.” Students and teachers were close as well. “We used to go to my teacher’s house

when she invited us over during the school holidays.”

After completing her secondary years at SCGS, she worked part time while attending night classes at the Adult Education Board. She subsequently did well enough at the High School Certificate examinations to qualify to study at the University of Singapore, where she majored in economics and sociology.

After a year in New York with her then-fiancé, now husband, who was working towards his Masters in Business Administration, she

Courtesy of Tan Wan Joo

returned and worked at the Singapura Building Society (now Singapura Finance).

It was in her job heading the loans department that she developed a deepened respect for Singapore’s working class, its hawkers and the odd-job labourers. “The hawkers, they cannot show tax returns but they are the ones who never default,” she notes.

Her experience with the less fortunate in Singapore — girls growing up in poverty and the elderly who cannot afford healthcare — has made her aware of her blessings. She feels that but for a twist of fate, she too could have ended up needing the help of others. Although she grew up on Emerald Hill, there were times in her childhood when finances were tight after the family fortune was lost because of speculation in commodities.

Says Wan Joo: “I count my blessings because I know that there but for the grace of God, go I.”

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Although Wan Joo’s volunteer efforts seem to circle around ageing, healthcare and women, she says that this was not a deliberate effort on a part. They unfolded thanks to her network of friends and associates who pulled her in. “I do it because I am comfortable with the people,” she says.

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Kan Shook Wah Daring to Dream

Isabelle Lim was born deaf, with her elbows fused together and her thumbs dangling from her hands, a result of a rare genetic condition known as Nager syndrome. As a result, Isabelle had to undergo three major surgeries, including one that involved removing her non-working thumbs and re-positioning her index fingers in their place.

Despite these challenges, Isabelle is now a talented photographer and she does a range of freelance jobs including events and food photography as well as portraits. She has also held two solo exhibitions.

Image credit to Isabelle Lim

The Dare to Dream scholarship, which aims to support those with special needs studying at the LASALLE College of Arts and the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, is the brainchild of Kan Shook Wah (SCGS: 1970 - 1973).

Shook Wah first became interested in helping special needs children while working at the Ministry of Defence where she had a few colleagues with special needs children. One of them shared that she did not know what her son with autism would do after he finished school at 18.

In addition, the family’s long-term plan was simply for his older sister to take care of him after their parents passed on.

“I felt very discouraged by that,” she recalls,“ I said, ‘Surely we must see what we can do so that they can be a bit more independent, so that they don’t rely solely on their siblings’.”

Thus was born the Dare to Dream Scholarship, which aims to help special needs youth by funding their education in the arts, where many of them have artistic abilities that compensate for their disabilities. It is hoped that armed with practical skills, they will be able to find work and live independently and with dignity.

Shook Wah and her husband, Adrian Tan, began by funding the first scholarships on their own but three of their friends have since joined them in contributing towards the fees.

them and I develop a personal relationship with them”. She also writes about them and their challenges and these profiles are published on the Dare to Dream website which is a platform to showcase these students and their talents, as well as raise awareness about their conditions.

Apart from publicity, Shook Wah and her husband also leverage on their contacts to help these students. With Adrian as founder of Ad Planet, Singapore’s largest local advertising group, the couple are in a unique position to access a network of people in the creative industry to assist the young scholarship recipients with internships and job opportunities.

In addition to Isabelle, the other recipients have a range of disabilities including autism spectrum disorder, spina bifida, rickets, dyslexia and hearing impairment.

Shook Wah stresses that it is not merely about writing cheques and putting them in the post.

“I’m actively involved with the According to Shook Wah, she gets students,”she says. “I get to know a tremendous sense of satisfaction

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Isabelle was able to realise her dream of being a photographer thanks to a full scholarship to the LASALLE College of the Arts. Called Dare to Dream, the scholarship was inaugurated in 2013 and Isabelle was its first recipient. Since then, it has been awarded to seven other students.

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from being able to help others.

She is propelled by her faith. “I’m governed by my Christian belief to do good works and to be of service to others.”

Helping people is part of Shook Wah’s DNA. On top of offering the scholarship, she is also a technopreneur who has started up a company to make safer and lighter combat helmets and body armour.

Shook Wah new venture came to be because of her younger son who is a digital graphic designer (her elder son is a surgeon). A schoolmate of his was involved in developing the technology behind the helmet while attending Deakin University in Australia. Through her son, she came to know about it. Today, Shook Wah, her husband, two Singaporean friends and the inventor have set up The Smart Think to commercialise this technology.

For Shook Wah, the attraction is that the technology is, foremost,

intended to produce the world’s lightest and safest ballistic helmet for soldiers. Being light means soldiers can be more nimble, which better quality helmets and body armour will save more lives.

This concern for others was something that her time in SCGS helped to cultivate. She was a school athlete and at one time, she was Singapore’s fastest school girl for the sprints. In 1973, she won the 100m and 200m events at the Secondary School Athletics Finals where she set the meet records.

Her 46-year-old school record of

off, I always felt terrible about not focusing and paying attention. But one day, Mrs Jean Chan, English and Literature teacher, was talking to us and she said,

Her secondary school years at SCGS also contributed, at least in part, to the scholarship’s name Dare to Dream.

“In SCGS, I liked to sit by the window and I would always look out to dream. I remember in secondary school, when I drifted

Singapore thereafter. After graduating with an honours degree in Sociology, she joined Mindef, where she spent the next three and a half decades of her life before deciding to retire.

While her work at Mindef was important, she feels that her work now with Dare to Dream and The Courtesy of SCGS

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Smart Think is personally more significant and purposeful. Being able to help special needs youths and potentially saving the lives of soldiers in the field is a fitting way for her to focus her energies, ‘You know girls, it’s now that her children have grown important to dare to dream.’” up. After a lifetime of working for a living, she is looking forward This was something that stayed to dreaming again, and making with Shook Wah all her life: having some of her dreams come to life. a teacher tell her that dreaming Image credit to Isabelle Lim was not just acceptable, but that it was important. Therefore, when 100m (12.8 seconds) set in 1973 is Shook Wah decided to set up the still unbroken. scholarship, she named it Dare to Dream.

“I had those opportunities and it made me feel very responsible Shook Wah’s own dreams took about how I had to conduct her to Raffles Institution after myself, and carry myself.”

SCGS, and the University of

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Audrey Looi

An Ophthalmologist with a Vision for helping Children

The day of the SCGS fun fair in 2010 marked a major turning point for Dr Audrey Looi, a senior consultant ophthalmologist at the Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC).

It was a fine Saturday morning and Audrey (SCGS: 1977 - 1986) had brought her eight-year-old son James to the centre to get his eyes checked. Both his elder sister and the boy’s Chinese tutor had mentioned that he was bringing books close up to his face to read so she figured she would squeeze in a quick eye test for him before heading off for an afternoon of carnival games and fun.

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Copyright 2018 Mediacorp Press Ltd. Photo first appeared in TODAYonline

progressive vision loss. What made matters worse was that when the family looked for support programmes for James, they discovered that none was available to support children with low vision in mainstream schools.

Audrey and her husband even considered leaving Singapore for countries that had more established support systems.

She soon realised that something more serious was going on. Even after putting prescription lenses on her son, he struggled to read the eye chart.

Audrey was gutted by the finding, but at the same time, she could not let her feelings show as she did not want to frighten her son.

At the time, the boy just wanted to join his sister at the fun fair.

She then ran a full eye examination “I remember going to the SCGS and asked her colleague, a fair after that and just trying to paediatric ophthalmologist, to run keep it together. I met some an electro-retinography test, which friends and just broke down is generally used to diagnose retinal when I shared the discovery disorders. After performing the test, with them because it was just so her friend confirmed that James did devastating.” A visiting expert not have a simple case of myopia; subsequently confirmed that instead, he had a form of retinal James had Stargardt’s macular dystrophy for which no treatment dystrophy, a genetic eye disorder was available. that affects the retina and causes

Lay Hong, too, has a personal experience with low vision. Both her children have low vision from retinal dystrophy as well.

Her journey started a decade earlier. To help her daughter then, she had obtained a Master in Special Education (specialising in vision impairment) from the University of Newcastle, Sydney, Australia. She was kind and generous and the two ladies hit it off immediately.

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Courtesy of iC2 PrepHouse

Serendipitously, whilst browsing at a store that sold low vision devices, Audrey picked up a brochure for a support group for parents whose children suffered from visual impairment. When she contacted the lady who had set up the Beyond Vision support group, Mdm Lee Lay Hong, things began to turn around.

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Lay Hong conducted specialised assessments to ascertain how badly James’s vision was affected and introduced him to assistive technology such as video magnifiers to help him enlarge reading material. She went down to his school to talk to the teachers and the principal to explain how the school could help James learn in class. She also began teaching him Braille.

Indeed, Lay Hong had been helping children like James for a few years, going from home to home to provide customised assessment and instruction. Many families had expressed difficulty even paying for her transport fees, let alone a professional fee. Some could not afford the assistive devices recommended.

Nevertheless, Lay Hong had a vision for setting up a school so that more children could gain access to proper guidance and instruction. She asked Audrey if she could help. Audrey figured that, given the difficulties Lay Hong had shared with her, they would need to set up a charity, rather than just a school, so that needy parents would also have access to the specialised

resources. Setting up a charity and making it a success was no small matter.

Both Audrey and her husband were busy in their demanding jobs and had concerns about their lack of knowledge and experience in the charity sector.

However, the knowledge that James and children with low vision in Singapore would benefit tremendously gave Audrey the courage to take the plunge.

Audrey approached her exMedical Director, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, then the Minister of Community Development, to gain support from the National Council of Social Services (NCSS) for a charity to help children with low vision. With his positive encouragement, the original team of Audrey, Lay Hong, and two others, Dr Wong Meng Ee and Dr Ang Beng Ti started the work to realise their vision and in 2012, iC2 PrepHouse opened its doors in Jurong Point shopping mall.

The centre currently has six vision teachers, and has helped about 140 children so far. There are 80 active students at the moment.

Source: The Straits Time Š Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Reprinted with permission

The premise behind the charity is that children with low vision should eventually grow up to be fully-included members of society and an important strategy is to make it possible for them to learn with other sighted children in mainstream schools.

Audrey believes passionately that where possible, children with disabilities, not just visual disabilities, should receive mainstream education. “Given our situation now, we have done well as a nation and I think we do have to pull together as a nation to help all those with disabilities so that they can enjoy the prosperity that the rest of us take for granted.

Her son James, who is now 18, is a prime example of how the correct instruction allows a child with low vision the chance to reach his full potential, both academically and socially. Despite his poor central vision, he is able to handle the International Baccalaureate curriculum at Anglo-Chinese School (Independent), has many friends in school, captains the track team, and play his guitar.

“He’s done well,” says his proud mother. “Probably largely because he feels safe and supported. We are curious to know what the future holds for him but at the very least, we are confident that he will be able to chart his own course.”

As for iC2, Audrey’s aim is to keep it running. As with all charities, funding is a challenge.

The charity’s annual operating

costs are about $700,000 a year, and the Tote Board supports 50 percent of this. Annual gala dinner events provide the rest to keep the charity going. There are no plans to add more centres as vision impairment is a low incidence disability in Singapore.

“We just want to ensure that when the clients come, the teachers will always be there for them, and that the teachers are qualified.”

Copyright 2018 Mediacorp Press Ltd. Photo first appeared in TODAYonline

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Li Woon Churdboonchart Everyone has Something to Give

As a volunteer distributing food to the underprivileged, Li Woon Churdboonchart (SCGS: 1990 - 1993) saw something that troubled her. In one of the homes she visited, there was a mother with an injured leg, her son, in his late teens or early 20s, and the woman’s daughter-in-law, also in her 20s, with a baby in her arms.

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Courtesy of Li Woon Churdboonchart

As the volunteers handed out the ration packs, the ablebodied people in the home just watched passively.

“As you are handing the ration packs over to the less-privileged family, the youngsters are witnessing that charitable people will just keep giving you stuff, without you having to do anything,” recalls Li Woon.

Not many Residents’ Committee (RC) were receptive to this “relatively different” idea but Jalan Kukoh RC welcomed the

Image credit to Amalus Barakna, a volunteer at The Volunteer Switchboard

initiative wholeheartedly.

Jalan Kukoh has nine rental blocks out of 12 public housing blocks, comprising households of both elderly people and young families.

For the first session, Jalan Kukoh RC identified 75 elderly residents as the recipients of the programme and also invited 30 young families to pick up a pack,

but after they had helped to pack and distribute the packs to the elderly, as resident-volunteers.

The response was unsurprisingly poor - only seven of the 30 families eventually came down to help. One resident said, “Why must deliver the packs? I just want to come and collect,”and left the event while lamenting about the change in format.

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She was disturbed by the idea that able-bodied people would simply see themselves as beneficiaries, receiving aid.

So when she decided to start up her own social enterprise, The Volunteer Switchboard (VSB), in late 2013, she decided that she would do it differently.

Instead of creating financial dependency by simply handing out provisions to everyone, she wanted the entire community to get involved as well.

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Li Woon saw this as a good filtering mechanism because it meant that those families did not really need the additional financial support, thereby allowing the resources to be distributed to those who really needed and appreciated it.

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This move to get the lessprivileged residents of Jalan Kukoh involved in helping others was an attempt to change mindsets, so that they would realise that they, too, could be of help to others regardless of their financial situation. Li Woon also saw that volunteering provided an avenue for people to practise integral values and promote social inclusion through mindful giving.

Over the years, VSB has been providing both financial and social support to the Jalan Kukoh community through its strong network of volunteers and sponsors. Most importantly, VSB has been slowly changing mindsets – one at a time. One resident-volunteer started donating a portion of her earnings from babysitting to Li Woon’s social enterprise. The first time around, she donated $50 and said, “I’ve received a lot from you guys so here’s $50 back to

you.” And just two years ago, she donated another $200.

Some of the programme’s beneficiaries have also turned their lives around. One woman found a job as a sales promoter and apologised to Li Woon for not being able to volunteer regularly anymore because she now has to work on weekends. She still volunteers to help when she can.

Such stories always inspire Li Woon and her team to strive on.

The most encouraging outcome is that this programme is now

warmly welcomed by the residentvolunteers who would also bring their families along to inculcate the good values and community spirit amongst the young ones, she says.

The project at Jalan Kukoh is called Project Home Sweet Home and is one of four programmes run by VSB. Project Home Sweet Home has transitioned from a rationing programme to a befriending initiative, and has expanded in late 2018 to include

Image credit to Amalus Barakna, a volunteer at The Volunteer Switchboard

amazing – the children gained self-confidence when the Ah Ma and Ah Gong applauded and asked for encores, and the Ah Ma and Ah Gong had a day of fun!”

Under the +Venture programme, volunteers take less privileged children on heritage trails around Singapore. At the same time, these children are encouraged to give back and volunteer their time at the Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home.

Although The Volunteer Switchboard was only formed in late 2013, Li Woon’s volunteer efforts actually started much earlier, back in Secondary Two in SCGS, to be exact. This was even before “Community-InvolvementProject” or “Values-in-Action” was introduced to the Singapore education curriculum. Her teacher arranged for her class to volunteer at a convalescent home. That was when she realised how fortunate she was and that she had responsibility to give back to the community.

Li Woon remembers working with the children from Beyond Social Services as they helped feed and befriend the elderly, and even put up a performance for the old folks to enjoy. She notes: “They are so good at it, more experienced than many of my adult volunteers because back at home these children have to take care of their Ah Ma or Ah Gong. The performance, too, was

A year later, the same children conducted a fundraising event with their mentors, and wanted to give the funds raised to the Lee Ah Mooi Home. “You know the experience had an impact on the kids when they do that,” Li Woon says.

After completing her secondary education, she went to Perth to continue her education, graduating from the University of Western Australia in 1999.

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Courtesy of Li Woon Churdboonchart

Kopi-Teh-or-Moi, a programme designed to empower the seniors through kopi and conversations, also within the Jalan Kukoh community. Another, called +Venture, helps children and youths, while Silver Moments has befrienders at the Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home to bring life and laughter to an otherwise quiet environment. With all four, Li Woon tries to apply the philosophy of empowering the beneficiaries to give back.

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When she returned to Singapore to start work at her first job with Citibank in 2000, she realised that she would make more of an impact if she organised people to volunteer, than if she simply volunteered individually. “A lot of people don’t like organising. It’s a lot of work, but they are happy to volunteer.”

She eventually become the Philanthropy Head within Citiclub, the employee social club. That was where she learned how to organise events that were

appropriate for people with little or no volunteering experience.

She learnt, for example, that it was necessary to start people with lighttouch events, with volunteering with under-privileged kids for instance, rather than immediately plunging them into working with more complex causes, such as, for example, individuals with mental health conditions.

When she joined Barclays in 2005, she continued her philanthropic work, organising Barclays employees across 14 Asia Pacific

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countries to volunteer their time at different events, at a time when Asia Pacific did not formally have a Corporate Social Responsibility programme. Her work in Asia Pacific was recognised and she even won an award for helping Barclays play a positive role in society.

The Volunteer Switchboard came about after Li Woon left Barclays in 2013. She had been working 17-hour days as the Regional Head of Client Data and managing a team of 180 people.

Despite this workload, she was still devoting time to volunteering work, but it eventually took a toll on her health.

She took a sabbatical and after a bit of travel, decided what she wanted to do with her life.

With her passion for volunteering, her experience in corporate volunteer work and her corporate experience, she set up The Volunteer Switchboard.

Image credit to Amalus Barakna, a volunteer at The Volunteer Switchboard

While the social enterprise has created specific programmes to provide volunteering opportunities for the public, it also helps corporations and schools to

customise volunteer programmes for their employees and students.

In addition, it has extended consultancy services to charities and built volunteer management tools to help increase the capacity and capabilities of the charities within the social service sector.

She now runs The Volunteer Switchboard full-time since leaving her last roles as the senior Vice President of Compliance for JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank.

She has also managed to find the time to evangelise about the importance of volunteering. She has made regular visits to SCGS, giving talks to the girls about the “magic” of sharing their blessings.

(Interestingly, some SCGS girls have been involved with The Volunteer Switchboard from the beginning because one of their mothers was Li Woon’s boss and she wanted her then 14-year-old daughter to get some volunteer experience. Today, the young lady

is 20-years-old, and an intern at VSB!).

When Li Woon talks to SCGS girls, her message is a simple one: ”We are all very fortunate. We have a great education and we have been given an amazing platform.

“At all times, let’s share our blessings and serve others. After all, we are SCGS – Sincerity, Courage, Generosity and Service!”

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Image credit to Lee Liting, a volunteer at The Volunteer Switchboard

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Courtesy of Pamela Chng

Pamela Chng

Changing the world, one cup of Coffee at a Time

People often joke that coffee is life changing. To Pamela Chng though, changing lives through coffee is her goal in life.

Pamela (SCGS: 1983 - 1992) sees coffee as a way of helping people, from marginalised women and at-risk youth in Singapore, to coffee farmers in Myanmar and Colombia.

where farmers benefit directly and it uses paper cups that are designed to be compostable, even though these cost more than regular coffee cups. It is also attempting to switch to clean power. Right now, about 20 percent of its electricity is generated from solar energy.

During the course, Bettr Barista faciliates internships and, subsequently, assist them with job placement so they can find gainful employment.

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So far, the company has taken in about 95 students and among its graduates, 80 percent continue to be employed.

In addition to its goal of helping people in Singapore, Bettr Barista also ensures that its business practices are sustainable and ethical. It only buys coffee beans

Its efforts have not gone unrecognised. Bettr Barista won the 2017 President’s Challenge Social Enterprise Of The Year and four years before, was named Social Enterprise Start-Up Of The Year, an award which is also part of the President’s Challenge.

Image credit to Bettr Barista

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She does this through the Bettr Barista Coffee Academy, a social enterprise she set up in 2011.

During the course of a four-month programme, Bettr Barista takes people such as single mothers and youths from less fortunate background and teaches them about coffee. They learn about coffee beans, how to roast and grind them, and practise making cappuccinos and lattes.

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In 2015, the company became Singapore’s first Certified B Corporation. To get on this list, a business has to meet high standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability, to balance profit and purpose.

Pamela founded Bettr Barista because she wanted to start a business that also contributed to the greater good. Among her insiprations was Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank, who pioneered the concept of microcredit and microfinance.

“I think that businesses have that social responsibility to be productive and positive entities in society, to create value and not to destroy value,” says Pamela.

Despite its name, Bettr Barista was not set up to train people to become better baristas so much

Courtesy of Pamela Chng

as to make them better people.

“The intent was to create better people who were resilient in life and who could fulfil their potential in life,” she says.

The company works with some 70 social service organisations in Singapore who refer suitable clients to them. The company screens all applicants, looking for people who are committed and motivated enough to change their lives.

The first task is to build up their self-confidence so they believe they have the ability to achieve.

However, just as important is to help them make better choices.

It is about teaching them the importance of showing up for “It really doesn’t matter where work, so that they know that “if I they’ve come from or what they’ve show up for work, I get to keep my experienced. If we see there’s job. If I get to keep my job, I get a real desire to change their my pay. If I get my pay, I can life situation, we take a chance afford to send my kids to school,” on them.”

Pamlea says.

Helping these people is not just about teaching them to use an espresso machine. Bettr Barista works with women who typically come from disadvantaged backgrounds and face many challenges. One example would

During the first half of the course, part of the programme is about building up innate capabilities, specifically emotional resilience.

With the help of a clinical psychologist, Bettr Barista has developed a programme based

on rational emotive behavioural therapy, which is a subset of cognitive behavioural therapy. The therapy aims to resolve emotional and behavioural problems and help people lead better lives.

“It gives each individual that toolkit of skills to build their emotional muscle so they can cope with their lives, their situations and their challenges,” explains Pamela.

During the second month of the course, the women start a paid six-week internship with partner cafes. Following that, they go through two months of full-time work. If they make it through, they graduate from the course.

The company supports each participant during their job stint, helping them to stay on track and working with them to resolve issues that might arise at home or at work. According to Pamela, the second half of the course is where a lot of the work happens.

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be a teenage single mother.

“She comes in, and has to build some kind of resilience in terms of coping with kids and trying to hold down a job to earn enough money to support the family on her own,” says Pamela.

“That kind of stress and emotional toll is tremendous.”

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In addition to helping its clients, Bettr Barista also uses business as an engine to do good. “Either we buy directly from the farmer, or we work with partners at origin who we know are paying farmers fairly and giving them the assistance to improve the quality of their products.” The beans they buy from Panama, for example, come directly from a farm while the coffee from Myanmar and Nicaragua comes from social enterprises in those countries.

Bettr Barista was hatched over a one-year period in 2010 when a burnt-out Pamela was trying to figure out what to do with her life. She had been running a web consultancy for eight years and needed a break. She sold her shares in the company to her partners and went to Melbourne to recharge. She had spent four years at university in the city, so it was like a second home.

Now back after more than a decade, she took a class in film and also learned about making coffee from a place famous for

its cafe culture. As she did so, an idea percolated in her to create a coffee-related social enterprise.

Starting up a social enterprise made sense for many reasons.

Having been an entrepreneur, Pamela knew she did not want to be an employee again. However, she did not just want to set up any old profit-focused business; she wanted to do more than just make money.

“I wasn’t very motivated by money,” she says. “If I was going to work hard, then I’d like to work hard for something that meant a bit more.”

Barista training would give people skills that the market needed and it would be in an industry that she was personally interested in. And that is how Bettr Barista was born.

Now that the business is eight years old, Pamela is trying to take it to the next level. She’s looking at expanding out of Singapore and training not just baristas but also future entrepreneurs as well.

Bettr Barista has recently developed takeaway retail outlets such as the one at the DBS Bank branch in Plaza Singapura, and Pamela would like to develop this into a micro-business opportunity.

“It’s not going to make you a million dollars, but it’s an honest day’s work; it will give you a decent salary and it’s also helping the larger community.”

Pamela’s decision to set up a social enterprise, to run a business that helps the those in need while making a profit, speaks to the kind of person she is. This is something that she says her school experience helped to shape.

When she was in school, there was an emphasis on developing well-rounded girls, she recalls.

There was an understanding that while academic excellence

was important, to be considered a success, one had to embody the school’s motto of sincerity, courage, generosity and service.

“SCGS was pivotal to who I am,” she says.

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Image credit to Bettr Barista

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Elizabeth Tan

An Entrepreneur with a Heart for the Himalayas Being an entrepreneur involves long hours and constant worries about everything from marketing to manpower and the bottom line. One entrepreneur, however, is taking all this in her stride. In 2012, Elizabeth Tan (SCGS: 1992 - 2001) took over her father’s shoe shop in Lucky Plaza and turned Heatwave Shoes into a regional powerhouse with 50 stores around Asia.

As if she was not busy enough, she also started a nongovernmental organisation, Sight to Sky, which is involved in healthcare and education in the Himalayas.

To date, Sight to Sky has been able to help over 6,000 people through annual mobile clinics and healthcare programmes.

Courtesy of Elizabeth Tan

Courtesy of Elizabeth Tan

There was one minor issue: the school was in a remote village in Ladakh, a region in the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir. It took Elizabeth three days to get from New Delhi to the village of Zangla. After she got there, she ended up staying for more than six weeks, living with 60 nuns and 30 students.

Following the talk, Elizabeth approached the nun, who is also a professor of Buddhism at the University of San Diego. She suggested that Elizabeth could help by teaching English in one of the schools run by the nuns.

“It was an experience that taught me a lot. I was living very simply. The nuns also had very little but they were so happy.”

While she was there, she found out that many people in the region suffered from eye problems. “So many of the children needed glasses. I felt very frustrated. I had come all the way here and they could not even see what was on the blackboard.”

Due to the high altitude enivironment, the villagers are exposed to high rates of ultraviolet radiation and glare from the sun. In the region, even people in their 20s develop cataracts.

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Sight to Sky was born out of Elizabeth’s love for travel. In 2010, while still searching for her mission in life after graduating two years before, she embarked on a solo trip to India. During her first week there, she was inspired after attending a talk by a Buddhist nun and scholar, the Venerable Karma Lekshe Tsomo.

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A nine-year-old girl whom Elizabeth taught, brought home the extent of the problem in Ladakh. “She was the brightest one in the class. She would come and would ask me questions.

Then one day, she stopped coming to class.”

The whole experience affected her greatly. In 2012, Elizabeth came across Global Clinic, a non-governmental organisation comprising medical and non-medical volunteers based in Singapore. When she found out that they were going to Ladakh, she signed up as a volunteer and Elizabeth went to the girl’s home proposed a mobile eye clinic, and discovered that the girl’s based on her experience in father, who was in his late 20s, had the area. cataracts in both eyes. “He was no longer able to work in the fields so her mother had to go and work.

The young girl had to stay home to take care of her whole family, to get water, to look after her father and her siblings and to cook for everyone.

“She had so many dreams but her father’s eyesight affected her as well.”

While cataract surgery is a relatively straightforward 10-minute operation, it was out of reach for the inhabitants of Zangla, where the nearest hospital is three days away. The villagers also had a resigned attitude towards the problem, seeing it as simply their lot in life, rather than something that could be avoided.

Courtesy of Sight to Sky

Courtesy of Elizabeth Tan

Her tenacity paid off. Sight to Sky has since taken off. It now organises annual visits to the region and they have also added more services to their mobile Undaunted, the team decided to health clinics. They even have go elsewhere and visited seven dentists come along to do fillings, villages along the Indus River extractions and root canals. The in Ladakh instead. They trekked medical team has also identified from one village to the next, people who would benefit from handing out prescription glasses, cataract surgery. Additionally, medicine, providing education on in 2017, they started building eye care and giving away donated schools powered by solar energy. sun glasses. Despite various These schools, built without people on the team having to cement, use solar energy to battle altitude sickness, they generate heat so that the students managed to see 1,200 can attend school during the patients in all. winter months.

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Courtesy of Elizabeth Tan

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After months of planning, they managed to put together a team of nine non-medical volunteers and three optometrists all ready to go back to Zangla. Then with three months to go, disaster struck: their permits were cancelled because of sensitivities in the border area.

The next year, again working with Global Clinic once again, she launched the Sight to Sky Mobile Eye Clinic mission, this time going to nomadic villages in Changthang, a high altitude plateau in the southeastern part of Ladakh. It took almost a year to plan, with part of the difficulty being that she was not part of a network of healthcare workers.

She ended up looking up doctors on Facebook to see who had experience in going on medical missions.

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Elizabeth’s work with Sight to Sky led her to being nominated for The Straits Times Singaporean of the Year award in 2018.

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Although she spends two weeks a year on these trips, she is able to do so without affecting her business. In fact, with a regional presence and a growing e-commerce element, Heatwave Shoes is doing well. She sees Heatwave not as haute couture, but as an everyday brand for working women. Her vision is for women to have shoes that are comfortable, accessible and

affordable — “Something you can wear from day to night, and you feel comfortable wearing from day to night.” Elizabeth sees these shoes as “empowering women’s daily journey.” The shoes are designed in Singapore and made in factories in Malaysia.

You would imagine that Elizabeth, being a successful entrepreneur who is simultaneously running a charity, has always been dynamic and outspoken. On the contrary, Elizabeth said she was actually quite shy as a young girl. It was only when she got to secondary

Courtesy of Elizabeth Tan

school that she started to open up, thanks to her involvement with the drama society in SCGS. One major event in her school life was being made stage manager for the school play during the school’s centenary celebrations.

“I was a Secondary Two student and they gave me the opportunity to be the stage manager for the entire concert,” she marvels.

It was a tremendous learning opportunity and confidence boost for her.

Her secondary school years were also when Elizabeth’s love for travel was kindled. Her very first trip abroad was a school trip to Malacca, organised for the Secondary Two girls. The next year, she went to the United Kingdom on a geography trip and to Auckland the year after that with the drama society.

What also helped build up her confidence was working part-time in secondary school. The parttime work was out of necessity as her father’s shoe business was buffeted by the 1998 Asian economic crisis. She worked as a telemarketeer and also sold phone plans and credit cards at roadshows.

Courtesy of Elizabeth Tan

During her years at NUS, her entrepreneurial streak emerged.

She set up an events company that at one point earned her $2,000 a month. The money enabled her to spend a year and a half on exchange at McGill University. This, too, was a formative time for her, as she was immersed in an environment where the students were

passionately involved in politics and social causes. That taught her that there was more to life than just having a good job.

It took about two years after graduating in 2008 for her to find out what she wanted to do in life.

Interestingly, her trip to India, which was the spark behind Sight to Sky, also inspired her to take over the dad’s business.

“I thought that if I’m going to be helping all these people so far away, I ought to be helping the people close to me as well.”

Thanks to her own life experience, Elizabeth believes in following one’s passions.

“If you follow the things that make you feel excited, it will lead you to where you are meant to be.”

Elizabeth herself followed her own passion for travel and that led her to Sight to Sky. So while her daughter, who is in primary school in SCGS, is too young to know what she wants to do in her life, Elizabeth already knows that her daughter does not need to fill her mother’s shoes; little Ava just needs to follow her own heart.

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Despite working part-time, she was able to do well enough to go to Catholic Junior College, and then the National University of Singapore, where she majored in history.

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Courtesy of Noah’s Ark CARES

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Chew Gek Hiang Defender of the Voiceless

Spending every Sunday feeding, cleaning, walking and caring for 200 stray dogs on Jurong Island is not most people’s idea of a good time but Chew Gek Hiang (SCGS: 1971 - 1980) is not most people.

The Head of Finance at investment holding company Tecity is more than happy to trade her designer threads and power lunches with the city’s business elite for comfortable clothes and the company of her barking, yapping and whining charges.

Gek Hiang explains that she decided to focus on stray

companion animals because she feels that government agencies focus more on the needs of humans.

“I don’t want to duplicate something that already exists. I wanted to set up something that could make a difference.”

Noah’s Ark CARES was set up in 2005 after the no-kill animal shelter Noah’s Ark decided to move its operations from Singapore to Johor.

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Courtesy of Chew Gek Hiang

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Gek Hiang is the Head of Noah’s Ark Companion Animal Rescue and Education Society (CARES) and her Sunday routine is part of an effort known as the Jurong Island Project, a joint project with other animal rights groups to trap-neuter-release-and-manage the stray dogs on the island. In addition, Noah’s Ark CARES also works to sterilise both stray dogs and cats in industrial areas in Singapore.

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Noah’s Ark wanted to maintain a presence in Singapore and Gek Hiang, a dog lover who knew the founder, agreed to set up Noah’s Ark CARES to do fundraising and sterilisation. After the Singapore branch became involved with the Jurong Island Project, it became a registered charity that had to focus on activities in Singapore. As a result, the two groups have legally uncoupled from each other.

Today, sterilising stray dogs is one of the main activities of Noah’s Ark CARES. The group sees sterilisation as a way to save the lives of these dogs as quite often, the reflex response of the authorities to the problem of stray dogs is to cull them.

“We’ve always believed that there is a better way to reducing the stray population,” says Gek Hiang. “Culling is not humane or effective.”

According to Gek Hiang, a lot of the street dogs in Singapore are pets that were abandoned.

On the streets, they face all kinds of challenges: they are killed for food, abused and become frequent victims of road accidents.

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As a result, in addition to sterilising dogs, the group also attempts to re-home those that are suitable. The big challenge, however, is changing mindsets.

“We are competing against puppies and our dogs are not non pedigree.”

Courtesy of Noah’s Ark CARES

To make their street dogs more acceptable as pets, the group socialises those dogs that are

Courtesy of Noah’s Ark CARES

more likely to be adopted so that they can adapt to life in a home with humans and perhaps other dogs.

Fortunately, Gek Hiang has a talent for socialising and rehabilitating dogs. “If you have the right attitude you can train any dog,” she believes.

While the group is focused on sterilising dogs that live on the street, Gek Hiang is aware that

Her love for dogs began at a young age. She received her first dog, an Australian Silky Terrier, when she was just four years old.

The family home always had dogs as her grandfather had a fondness for German Shepherds. Even back then, however, the family did not buy dogs from pet shops. “We always took dogs from the SPCA.” Given her passion for saving street dogs, certainly an unconventional hobby in Singapore, it is not surprising that her advice to SCGS girls is, “be yourself”.

“Don’t be afraid to be different.

Don’t be afraid to dream. People are always scared about being different but there is no such thing as a norm.”

“If something makes you happy, then go for it. You will succeed, not just in monetary terms but in sense of fulfilment.”

Not being afraid to dream, and being determined to do the right thing was one of the things she took away from her own experience in SCGS. “We didn’t have (written) school rules,” she recalls. “Miss Tan Sock Kern used to believe that you should be governed by what was right and proper.”

That approach, to think about what is right rather than to just follow the rules, helped develop independent thinking, says Gek Hiang.

“It allowed us the freedom to experiment.”

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this only attacks the problem at one end. “Our long-term plan is to educate people, that to be a responsible pet owner, you have to sterilise your pet to reduce the number of unwanted animals.”