The Boy From Trengganu - A New Start

The happy news came earlier than expected. The police have finally closed their investigations and returned the passport to him.

When I met him this evening, he was overjoyed. He never expected his life would return to normalcy so soon. Just a week ago when I found him shelter at volunteer Lella's place, he was preparing to wait for months before he could live a normal life again.

We adjourned to the East Coast Lagoon Food Village for him to break his fast and have a dinner celebration. I asked for his plans. He said he was going to visit his good friend in Johor Bahru before returning to Singapore to look for work again. He wants to be able to earn some money to give his parents when he sees them. His dream ambition is to work in the airlines as he has completed a course in Malaysia to equip himself.

He had a good appetite and was all smiles throughout. A good samaritan has given him $300 for him to start afresh. As I passed him the money on behalf of the anonymous donor, tears welled up in his eyes.

The boy from Trengganu will be leaving Singapore tomorrow. As I bid him farewell and wished him well, he hugged me and thanked me profusely. He has indeed found friends in Singapore when he was down and will never forget the many helping hands that were stretched out to him in this foreign land. Lastly, thank you Lailan for bringing him to Project Awareness.

THEME - Housing: $28,000 3-room HDB flat comparing to $350,000 similar flat nowaday

He was standing there as though he was rooted to the ground. 71 year-old Mr. Sia suffered a stroke in 2008, just before he retired as a PUB technician. He still has difficulty walking and tries his best to move about as much as he could everyday.

We spoke after I gave him a packet of vegetarian beehoon. He told me he had seen his Member of Parliament but was not happy with the outcome. He then went on to share with me some of his deepest concerns. When he bought his 3-room flat in which he still lives, he was drawing a salary of $1,600. His flat cost him $28,000 and he was able to pay off his mortgage in 10 years. He laments that his children will not enjoy the same comfort level that he had. Even with a salary of $3,000, his eldest daughter is unable to buy a similar flat, which now costs almost $350,000.

His 3 children, all daughters, are living with him. Owing to the high costs of living, they are not able to give him much monthly allowance. He regrets having given up his pension scheme when he was a civil servant. He puts it down to not having been given a choice at all and even then with the CPF route , he has monies retained in his CPF account which he could not withdraw.

He also talked about how some people would take advantage of do-gooders in his neighbourhood. Once he wanted to help someone who asked for money. When he took out $2, the man refused to accept and demanded for $10. He was completely disheartened by the experience which was echoed by another elderly man whom I spoke to earlier.

Mr. Sia tried to move his legs after talking to me and found them immobilised. After taking my advice to do some leg stretching, he was able to stagger slowly in the direction of his flat. Watching him walk, there is no doubt that good health is afterall, one's most precious possession in old age.

From Counselling to Mediation

One of the most meaningful engagements in my life was to have joined the Samaritans of Singapore ("SOS") back in the mid 90's.

After a long training which lasted for a year with interim assessments, I finally landed in the phone room, answering the SOS hotline. The people who called in were mostly emotionally or psychologically troubled. There were unmarried mothers, mental patients and those who were suffering from depression or entertaining suicidal thoughts. These conversations can be emotionally draining on those who do not have emotional temerity to cope with what counsellors term as "transferences", leaving them feeling down and out.

SOS gave me a steep learning curve and I drew valuable lessons from the unhappy experiences of the callers that shaped my outlook in life. It was also a tough period that strengthened my resolve to make time for those who need help. Running my legal practice in the day and attending to the hotlines at SOS was a big challenge. After the birth of my third child, I left SOS but the skills I acquired never left me. I consistently used them to influence the people around me to think and act positively. I found myself counselling clients and friends in relational issues. Once, I even spent nights on end counselling a couple who had young children studying in the same school as my children. They were at the verge of breaking up and days later patched up, keeping their family intact until this day.

Mediation in the courts began some 20 years ago. It started as a judge-dominated process and improved over time with the setting up of the Singapore Mediation Centre. There were training courses and accreditation was given to those who passed the relevant tests. By the time I decided to be accredited as a mediator, I was already armed with qualifications in psychology and clinical hypnotherapy. All these knowledge about the human mind gave me great advantage in mediation which I saw as another form of counselling.

I mediated at different venues for different types of disputes. From sibling disputes over parental care, neighbour disputes over noise, leakage, corridor obstructions and land encroachments to landlord-tenant issues, consumer disputes over slimming packages, time resorts, second-hand car purchases, renovation contracts, etc., mediation has expanded my insights into human interactions under various circumstances.

Everyone has a personality and how that personality is formed has many theories. Whatever those grand theories may be, no two persons are completely alike and we need to appreciate that there are differences between individuals. Understanding those differences is the key to understanding personal conflicts and how they can be resolved, minimised or avoided.