Saving Women’s Lives (starting with Mine)

When I was 15 my father lost his job and I grew up suddenly. The educational pathway I expected was suddenly put at risk. While others could coast by in school with mediocre grades and definitely get a place in university if not in Singapore perhaps in Australia as their parents could pay for that additional cost. That would not be my story. I would have to rely 100 percent on myself to make any of that a reality.?

I am grateful I went to schools where the principals and teachers were actively involved in reminding us of the scholarships available and priming us to receive them. We spoke of Cambridge many times - reading ‘Jude the Obscure’ for my Literature A Levels may have propped us up with flights of delusion and grandeur but in the end one of my classmates did make it to Oxford for a scholarship. I went to visit and he punted me down the river as it was tradition to do.?

I was very lucky to have fallen in love with teaching and won the local Public Service Commission award to study in National University of Singapore for my undergraduate and so never worried about my school fees or how to pay for the hostel. However the fear of never having enough actually never left me... when one has a trauma so early on in life it seeps inside you unconsciously and your actions are other colored by it even though you may not be aware of it.?

It is only now decades later that I see my workaholism as my means to always stay safe. Unless I am productive, I am of no value to anyone... is some strange underlying mantra running in my brain. This dates back again to my over commitment in school to multiple extra curricular activities and to representing the school in debating and quizzes and music performances - so many ways to fill up my time and show myself worthy.?

Even with the undergraduate funding, I was not only heavily involved in university activities, I took on social work in the community as someone who worked with street kids who would be in trouble with the law. The then called Centrepoint Kids and Far East Kids. Truth be told I was probably hoping to be one of them myself and dressed like them in large skirts and shapeless shirts. I believed my mother preferred those to the too short skirts that came soon after in the fashion trend.?I would sit with them on the weekends and be around as the police gathered them up for illegal gathering. Some were innocent, some were already in gangs.

I worked night and day - perhaps because I was full of potential and energy and good will. I worked night and day because perhaps I was afraid to be in the spot again where there was not enough and I was left helpless to the whim of fate. I hated being poor and without options. It was simply unfair. Some had the money and resources and others, did not.?This social injustice fuels me today as I raise funds for those in need.

So my fundraising and resourceful traits kicked it. From the first hand me down and cash grant from a benefactor I now saw how I had to prove myself worthy so I could get a willing donor to my cause. In this first instance it was the Singapore government whom I served for 8 years after I graduated from National Institute of Education and was a very happy teacher. I only left the Ministry of Education because I wanted to understand further how socio-economic status affected students as I saw time and time again during my time as a teacher how smart students where penalized by homes wrecked with family strife or outright neglect. I had so much respect for students who had to not only study but to also see to their younger siblings - picking them from school and cooking for them, Or the ones like me who had to study while their father/uncle/brother/grandmother lay wasted from alcohol or gambled away their family savings. None of this is dramatic, I have worked with these same kids as we try to ensure their electric bills are paid so they could have light at night.?

When I finally did my own way to Cambridge, albeit the other on in USA; Harvard. I was a much older student but still obsessed with being productive and valuable and still not having enough funding to pay my own way. This time no one could blame me - Harvard is a hefty sum. SGD$74 000 in 2002 could have bought me a down payment on an apartment. I chose to use it on a Masters in Human Development and Psychology. Mind you I did not have all that money. I was lucky to work at a non profit and met one of the benefactors - ....Mrs C.

While Mrs C herself never gave me a cent, she opened the door to as many foundations and fundraisers as possible so I could have a chance to state my case and attend Harvard. I met a very achieved fundraiser and he introduced me to some people. I had other friends applying for scholarships for their own studies who generously shared with me their own options and I plucked up the courage to ask my own communities whom I had served for years to help me along my way. I raised $10 000 from Lee Foundation, $10 000 from Tan Kah Khee foundation?+ $5 000 from the Catholic Welfare Foundation?+ $5 000 Shirin Fodzar foundation and $5 000 from my uncle and USD$6 000 financial aid from Harvard itself. This money came together in a matter of months - just before I was going to give up attending Harvard as I did not have the means to pay. The rest came from my bank account and my savings from all those years of working two jobs at the same time... Always. Anxious I would not have enough.?

In the past years, I have returned the funds to the foundations with inflation. Very much keen to see that the money be used for someone else in need. I have also begun supporting causes I believe in like the arts and women and children's?health.?

For the longest time when I did return from Harvard, I did not make the big bucks one assumes Harvard graduates make. Firstly Harvard Graduate School of Education (HUGSE) as its affectionately called is a school of teachers. We go there to learn to teach better and research the quality of our teaching reforms. Many of my friends there were still paying their student loans from such an investment in their training. I was now the lucky one, not having taken a loan.?This is the same for those of us who studied Masters in Counselling where we have to pay much of our own funds ahead to be qualified with the delicate work of helping those with mental health challenges and yet our pay in society never measures up to those in banks and finance. This is why even now I am conflicted, willing to return to being a full time youth worker and counselor and the financial loss that would occur should I take such a role in the non-profit sector.

I returned to Singapore as a youth worker and earned out $2 100 a month and would have continued like this - if not for my mom falling ill and having already lost my dad - I was a main caregiver. She needed medical attention and I could not continue being a social worker as it was simply not enough for us. I returned to teaching - again night and day. Night classes as an undergraduate psychology tutor for a community college - which I loved and have done so for over 10 years and day time as a tutor and trainer for companies in managing their younger workforce.?

The stories can go on and the clients I served as a now psychologist. But the real story is how someone helped me when I was 15, 17, 31, to get the funds so I could develop the skills I needed to help more people. Just like some people pooled their money together so the Kenyan valedictorian of my Harvard year could study irrigation and help the village and then the nation as a politician. Just like one by one our $1 000 could help a local Singaporean Ballerina?dance at the Kennedy centre in July 2024.?

I felt the poverty of my pocket... ?and the fear and anxiety of always not feeling I had enough…. And that was while having to juggle the demands of top universities and living in a foreign land.

But have seen felt experienced and been part of the generosity of masses and that is why I return again and again to both the act of fundraising and the act of giving ever since. The miracle of that $40 000 from mostly strangers who believed in my promise to make this world a better place with my one life. That is why I continue.?And I urge you to join me.

PM me if you want to help in some of the fundraising efforts I am involved in 2024. These include at risk communities below the poverty line - single parents, caregivers and disabilities and the creative arts and women and children and mental health.