Koh Poh Kwang and A Rajamohan
Koh Poh Kwang:
In early 1968, Koh, who was then a young English-educated teacher in his 20s, was approached by the then Member of Parliament for Kallang, the late Encik Abdul Aziz Karim, to help him at his weekly meet-the-people sessions as English-educated writers, who were able to turn up every Tuesday evening were hard to come by.
Koh is glad to note that many young people are nowadays more forthcoming in coming forward to help out regularly at our weekly meet-the-people sessions. It is a good sign of progress that these young writers are able to make time to help out.
With our founding Prime Minister, the late Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, having envisioned Singapore as a Garden City, Koh had since 1968 participated in the annual Tree-Planting Day every year without fail and had in all planted more than 50 trees, thus contributing to the greening of our beloved island country and the mitigation of greenhouse effect. Having climate change being a global challenge and the planting of another million trees by 2030 as a target of Singapore’s Green Plan, it is therefore desirable for our younger generation to help our Government meet this target of having another million trees planted by 2030.
In 1972, Koh was appointed as the Secretary of the Organising Committee of the 1st Asian Regional Seminar for the International Council for the Education of Visually Handicapped at which he also presented a paper on gardening by blind children with the help of special gardening tools.
Gardening has now become his hobby since his retirement on 31st December 2017 as Principal of Lighthouse School, which is formerly the Singapore School for the Visually Handicapped. He would like to encourage more people to take up gardening as a hobby as there is much satisfaction and joy in seeing your plants grow and bear fruits.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Koh, accompanied by the then CCC Chairman, the late Mr. Kong Soow Buay, BBM(L), JP, and the then Treasurer, Mr. Ng Tian Lee, BBM(L) went around the 50-odd 7th Moon organisations to auction plaques for either Kallang CC building fund or Kallang CCC Welfare Fund.
Koh is glad to note that Whampoa CCC has now got a very strong Community Development Welfare Fund under the capable chairmanship of Mr. Alan Ng who together with his team of dynamic and enthusiastic members coupled with the contributions, sponsorships, and donations of our patrons, corporates, and individual benefactors have been doing an excellent job by providing a very wide range of welfare services to our Whampoa residents irrespective of age, gender, race or religion.
In December of 1985, Koh was approached by the then President of the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped, the late Mr. Ron Chandran Dudley, to be the Principal of the Singapore School for the Visually Handicapped (SSVH). So, he was Principal of SSVH until he got a call from the then Head of MOE, Special Education Unit, Mr. Donald Tan, asking him to help take in 20-odd deaf students. As a result, on 31st July 2008, he founded Lighthouse School, which is today the only sensory school in Singapore catering to 2 distinct groups of children, the visually impaired and the hearing impaired.
Koh had in total served as Principal of the School for 32 years despite several very attractive offers with much higher salaries and better perks from the private sector.
A Rajamohan:
Whampoa Meet-The-People
I have always had a passion to help people in any way possible. I have been helping out as a volunteer in meet-the-people sessions for the past 7 years now where I have been meeting many residents coming in with various types of issues. We are sometimes pampered not to realise the depth of problems people are going through that we fail to appreciate what we have. I have learnt to appreciate and embrace what I have. I have always had a sense of “feel good” feeling after each MPS session knowing I have helped at least one resident for the day!
Grassroots
Since young, I have always seen my father involved with grassroots events week in and week out. I have always admired his passion and dedication to volunteer amidst his busy schedule. We as a family used to go down for his events to help out in the events as well. I followed his footsteps into Grassroots as well where I was part of the Youth Executive Council where I went on to be the General Secretary and was part of the organisation for 12 years.
Singapore Children’s Home and Elderly Care
I have always had a passion to help those who are in need of care and concern. In that aspect, I came across Singapore Children’s Society and some elderly are places where I had donated and organised events to go down to spend time with them and keep them happy and also provide a listening ear to them where required.
Planting of Trees
I have always wanted to be environmentally conscious on what we do to the environment. As what we give is what we will receive back from mother nature. I have engaged in events such as beach clean-ups to small planting-the-tree events as well.
Auction of Plaques
It is always great to have good welfare backing, so as to support any events in need.
