When I Was Young

A RECESSION-HIT businessman refuses to steal time away from his volunteer work among kidney patients. One neighbourhood doctor “closes an eye” when patients say they can’t pay.

A 29-year-old professional gives free tuition to troubled kids, after a hectic day’s work. A 78-year-old woman living in a one-room flat rallies her foster children to help elderly neighbours.

Singaporeans, ungracious and self-centred? You only need to look around, when the going gets rough in a recession like this, to discover we may be a better people than we think.

Today went in search of simple acts of “help-thy-neighbour”, for our second Happy Issue of this year — the first was on Jan 5 — and unearthed countless stories of everyday unsung heroes.

They are (mostly) not rich, almost all busy with work, some wrestling with their own personal or financial woes. But they are proof it doesn’t take much to bring light into a stranger’s life.

Take the scene at noon last Friday, at the Toa Payoh Bus Interchange.

A man, who was among the masses hurrying along, stopped beside a woman in a wheelchair selling donation draw tickets. He took an entire booklet, for which he paid $20.

When Today stopped him and asked why, he shrugged: “What is $20? Probably only a few meals, right?” A minute later, he scurried back and shyly asked the reporter not to name him.

The woman in the wheelchair, stroke patient Amy Ng, said such acts of kindness are common during this downturn.

Last year, she sold an average of five donation draw books a day. Now, it’s eight on average and her record is 18.

“Singaporeans are actually more generous this year,” said Mdm Ng, 68, who volunteers with a charity.

Then there is customer service specialist Aries Ang, 29, who gives free tuition at the Gracehaven Children’s Home every Tuesday night for two hours, no matter how tiring her day has been.

When she first thought of volunteering three years ago, she had doubts about whether she could do it. These days, she coaches a child in Primary 4 and another in Primary 2, both of whom could barely read at first. “My greatest joy was to hear them reading. I don’t think you can put a value to that,” she says.

One dentist we learnt of tends, for two hours every Wednesday, to the dental needs of some 460 mental patients at the Sunlove Home. Another publicity-shy general practitioner, who lets needy patients pay just a nominal sum or pay later, downplays his deeds: “Such acts are very common among doctors. It is nothing ... like passing it forward.”

And then there is businessman, Mr Lim Cheng Eng, who in February gave a $200,000-hongbao to build a childcare and kindergarten centre in the West; and a month later, a six-figure sum to set up a bursary at his alma mater, the Nanyang Technological University.

The childcare centre, said Mr Lim, would allow parents to go out and work to supplement lost income, while the bursary would ensure no needy student is denied an education.

In these tough times, “those with the strength contribute their muscles. Those with the financial resources give their money,” said the 68-year-old who owns a confectionary business.

- LEONG LEE KEAT and ALICIA WONG

From TODAY, News

Monday, 06-April-2009