Recession Heroes

Today the recession heroes from 4C brings you a story about a real recession hero in Singapore.

Straits Times published a story regarding Mr Shawn Koh and his team of 9 social workers at the Pasir Ris Family Service Centre and how they have gone the extra mile to improve lives of people affected by these trying times.

Mr Koh is the head of the Family Service Centre which helps disburse money from the Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund.The fund aims to allow students from families with lower income to start a day with proper breakfast and have enough pocket money to sustain them through their school day. He and his team always gently probes about the family's situation everytime they get an application to try to offer more help in whichever ways they can. They also review cases every 3 to 4 months despite the fact that applicants are eligible to be on the scheme for 2 years. This allows them to ensure accountability and have more opportunities to aid families in other areas such as job hunting.

The reason behind all these work is that Mr Koh believes that "it is probably a lot harder emotionally for these people to accept the loss of the lifestyle they used to lead, and have to worry about bills and not knowing where their children's next meal is going to come from". Once, they discovered that a woman who applied was actually a single parent suffering from drug addiction and mental problems. This is where these social workers come in to provide their professional advice and opinions to help people like the woman to come out of her dark periods of trials and tribulations.

After reading this article, we feel that it is in times like these when Singaporeans can really step up and show the warmth of our society. We as teenagers can also initiate projects to do our part no matter how insignificant it seems. As the chinese proverb goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. It is when we muster our courage to take on the challenge to help others that we will be able to grow to become real recession heroes.