Lessons From a Lifelong Volunteer

Meet Wai Tong, a 70-year-old volunteer with Waterways Watch Singapore (WWS), who met virtually with our team member, Harriz, to share more about his rich life experiences.

Wai Tong's remarkable service-oriented spirit is evident in his career path, being a lifelong civil servant. He spent 30 years in the Singapore Armed Forces and another 20 in the Ministry of Education, leading, in his own words, "a very meaningful life". However, aside from serving the nation in a professional capacity, he had selflessly given up much of his personal time to contribute back to society.

Wai Tong's volunteering journey began since he was in university, at the age that many of us currently are. Even though he was not with an specific organisation at the time, he engaged yearly in what he terms as “gotong royong“. For the unacquainted, 'gotong royong' translates roughly to 'volunteerism' or 'kampung spirit', emphasising the communal spirit. Wai Tong went down to areas like Potong Pasir, which housed the kampung and farm areas, helping to declog drains. These drains had not been properly constructed as they were built by locals. Unbeknownst to him, Wai Tong was actually helping Singapore in alleviating the water shortage at the time, though he was not aware of the impact of his volunteerism.

"You could not only see, but smell the dirt from the Singapore River and Kallang Basin"

Aside from part-time volunteering with WWS, Wai Tong also visited and cleaned shelters for the homeless in Chinatowns. These were one-room flats that housed beggars and vagabonds, provided by the Housing Development Board, which was just starting up in his university days.

In response to what made him decide to become a volunteer, Wai Tong gives a bemused chuckle. "It wasn't really a decision", he says, as if it is an obvious truth. For Wai Tong, clearly, volunteering was naturally ingrained in his character and attitude towards life. He mentions that it helps him relate to other, keeping him active and in particular his work with WWS is crucial in maintaing the water security of Singapore.

He emphasises that water is especially important to Singapore unlike countries with larger land areas. We heavily depend on urban storm water, as opposed to countries with mountainous areas that can collect water from there.

Wai Tong believes that the reason why people don't volunteer enough is due to the lack of ownership Singaporeans have regarding their homeland. "It's not about culture", he cautions, "people are quick to say that for instance, Japan has a better 'culture' than Singapore. This is not true." He then gives the example that in the past and present, kampung areas were so clean because people helped each other to clean up every evening. Evidently, Singaporeans were capable to keeping their environment clean and usuable, but only if they had the right attitude. Trying to impose the importance of ownership on his audience, he quotes environmentalist David Attenborough, "We must do things right not to save the earth, but to save ourselves."

"It's not about culture"

The ideal volunteer should not expect results, Wai Tong warns. Sometimes volunteers may not be a good fit for the context. For instance, Wai Tong shares that the elderly often prefer interacting with volunteers similar to their own age, rather than youthful volunteers. This is because there would be a limit to how much the younger volunteers can relate to the elderly. Hence, volunteers should not be easily discouraged if results do not appear.

Volunteering must come from the belief within that what you are doing is the right thing. This is why he says programs like Community Involvement Programme under the MOE may not always result in willing volunteers, but he hopes that down the road, these reluctant volunteers will grow to understand the impact of what they do, as he once did.

Currently, Wai Tong spends his time as a full-time volunteer running programmes with WWS. It was heartening to note that prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, he stated that WWS had participants for the programs daily.

His final words of wisdom?

Don't wait till you're old to do something good for society.

"I'll do this until my body tells me that I can't"