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Tag: Ridzwan Dzafir Community Award

  • Umardani Bin Umle – Another Ridzwan Dzafir Community Award Recipient

    Umardani Bin Umle – Another Ridzwan Dzafir Community Award Recipient

    My late father was an ex-drug addict and he was the reason for me to embark on a social work career. My mother’s relentless support to aid him in his recovery, gave him the impetus to desist from his drug addiction. His ability to overcome the struggles and his determination to build better lives for his children proved that recovery is a possibility. His journey became my inspiration.

    It was the decision to join Singapore Prison Service as a Counsellor that deepened my passion to help the offenders. Through this work experience, I was fortunate to hear the offenders’ account on their struggles in rehabilitation and widened my horizon of the complexity reintegrating into the society effectively. Personally I believe reintegration is not only about the individuals’ motivation to change but also community efforts to support the change.

    I was dissatisfied in merely adopting theories and framework and had recognised the pitfalls of blindly applying theories. Having attained both degrees in Social Work, the PhD programme in Criminology would augment my current knowledge of rehabilitation practices. With exposures in both social work and criminology knowledge, such multi-disciplinary approaches would benefit both offenders and helping professionals exponentially.

    The Ridzwan Dzafir Community Award provided me with the opportunity to pursue my dreams and to learn from a renowned professor in Criminology. There is a need to uncover new approaches and to challenge paradigms to suit the needs for population that I am serving. It is with this conviction; I believe pursuing a Criminology degree from the University of Glasgow would expose me to a wealth of new knowledge on best practices.

    As a doctoral candidate, I aspire to continuously provide new knowledge, through evidence-informed research, to advance our professionalism in managing offenders’ reintegration. Rehabilitation is a dynamic landscape and thus there is a constant search to ensure effective practices are in place to lower the recidivism rates. Through this PhD programme, I hope to work alongside the Malay/Muslim community to advance our community standing and contribute to nation-building.

    – Umardani Bin Umle –

     

    Source: MENDAKI SIngapore

  • Meet Another Ridzwan Dzafir Community Award Recipient – Suen Johan Bin Mohd Zain

    Meet Another Ridzwan Dzafir Community Award Recipient – Suen Johan Bin Mohd Zain

    To me, the Ridzwan Dzafir Community Award not only represents an opportunity to continue my pursuit of academic excellence, it also serves as an inspiring symbol of perseverance, thought leadership, and unwavering dedication towards improving the community as well as the achievement of progressive social development. These values achieved average to below-average results from primary school up until the latter years of my undergraduate studies (in which I had to re-take my ‘A’ levels), I am grateful to have my relentless efforts at upgrading myself to be rewarded with a Master’s degree from the National University of Singapore, and now, an opportunity to complete a PhD at the University of Cambridge.

    I began to take huge interest in the area of ageing and post-retirement age employment after encountering the difficulties experienced by my retired father as well as the retired parents of members of my social circle. As the challenges of an ageing population begin to unravel across various social groups in Singapore, it is imperative to ensure that society develops inclusively and equitably with the guidance and support of empirically-grounded and empathetic thought leaders. I aim to position my role as a social scientist towards filling gaps in knowledge ageing population especially those more neglected segments such as women and ethnic minorities in the workforce.

    With the support of the Ridzwan Dzafir Community Award Scholarship, I am now able to advance in my career as an academic through the doctoral programme in Sociology at the University of Cambridge. My first year in Cambridge has been extremely fruitful both intellectually and socially. I have taken full advantage of the excellent teaching facilities by completing courses and workshops on quantitative research methods. Thus far, the supervision given by my primary and secondary advisors has been of the highest quality and ensures that my research questions address fundamental social and theoretical concerns. I have also been actively involved in cross-disciplinary research groups on labour market issues as well as in the organizing of PhD Research Skills Seminars for the Sociology department. Overall, Cambridge University has been a highly conducive environment for me to develop the necessary skills and networks to produce socially conscious and empirically rigorous scholarship.

    My ambition as an academic and a social scientist is to be a public intellectual that furthers the late Mr Ridzwan Dzafir’s legacy of promoting social change through progressive thinking. I am glad to be on my way to realising my dream of contributing towards building a more meaningful, financially secured, and sustainable future for older adults in Singapore.

    – Suen Johan Bin Mohd Zain –

     

    Source: MENDAKI Singapore

  • Meet Aziah Hussin, A Ridzwan Dzafir Community Award Recipient

    Meet Aziah Hussin, A Ridzwan Dzafir Community Award Recipient

    My first experience in the field of international law and development took place in the backdrop of one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history – the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004. During a youth expedition on behalf of the United Nations to deliver aid to children orphaned by the disaster in Banda Aceh, we were met with challenges from which I learnt that humanitarianism and human rights law are not simple matters of helping the helpless. Power and corruption, and politics and pragmatism, are at their most stark when resources are scarcest, and needs, most desperate. From that experience, I learnt that I would require the technical tools to make a difference, and for that, my academic journey in law began.

    After graduating from the National University of Singapore (NUS), I joined the Disputes Resolution team at a top litigation firm in Singapore, Drew & Napier LLC. In legal practice you learn the intricacies of the law and the challenges of using it for where the justice lies. After 5 years of being a litigator, I am determined to advance into a career in international law and human rights. I will soon be commencing the University College London Masters Programme (LLM) in International Law to gain the requisite knowledge and apply the same to effect real change on the ground.

    With the support of the RDCA Merit Scholarship, I am now undergoing an internship at The Hunger Project Australia (THPA). The Hunger Project (THP) is a large international non-government organisation (NGO) headquartered in New York. THPA offered me an internship specially curated to deepening my existing legal expertise and broadening my practical knowledge on the workings of an NGO.

    The THP model which focuses on (i) mobilisation for self-reliance, (ii) empowering women as key change-agents for development and (iii) making local government commit to breaking the cycle of poverty is truly remarkable. I have never seen anything like it and the data has proven successful results. I truly believe THP has found an effective and, significantly, enlightened, way to achieve its goals.

    The THPA team is inspiring and passionate and is an absolute joy to work with, both professionally and socially. They have prioritised my goals for the internship and married that with a range of challenging, mind-opening and dynamic work. They have tasked me with projects which challenge me beyond the legal work in which I am trained and have provided good guidance and support throughout.

    Work aside I have also grown from listening to their stories and understanding what motivated them to pursue this cause. In an environment of people who truly walk the talk, THP’s goal of breaking the cycle of poverty seems, I daresay, surmountable.

    With my internship experience and legal expertise, I hope to contribute back to our Malay/Muslim community through projects that adopt the key efforts of THP and focus on raising the educational attainment and self-esteem of women in need of empowering, assisting them in uncovering their own potential and skills, and ensuring the sustainability of such projects to ensure the cycle of poverty is broken.

    As Aung San Suu Kyi said, “The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all.” Though we may not solve all the world’s problems, it is a challenge that we must dare take on, in our lifetime.

    – Aziah Hussin-

     

    Source: MENDAKI Singapore