Prison Service honours 155 individual volunteers
Prison volunteer Tan Han Yao receiving his five-year long service award from Mr Masagos. Photo: Singapore Prison Service
SINGAPORE — For the past five years, he has been giving mathematics tuition to students of all ages at Tanah Merah Prison. Mr Tan Han Yao, a tutor volunteer with the prison, helps inmates who are preparing to take their O-Level examinations.
A former teacher, Mr Tan, 34, said he was drawn to tutoring inmates as he felt this was one segment of society that needed help, but was not getting enough attention.
“When I teach the kids out there, it’s like they just come to school — they take it for granted I think. Whereas these students they really display earnestness,” said Mr Tan, who was among those who have been recognised at this year’s Singapore Prison Service (SPS) Volunteers Awards.
At an award ceremony yesterday, 155 awards were given out to individual volunteers and 35 awards were given to befriending agencies and voluntary welfare organisations such as Prison Fellowship Singapore and Narcotics Anonymous.
Mr Tan, who received the five-year Long Service Award, confessed that he even had doubts — such as whether inmates would be interested in learning — before he started volunteering, but these disappeared after he started. “Whenever I get to hear that ‘oh Mr Tan, I’m not coming in next week because I’m going to be released’, I guess that holds very dear to me.”
To date, there are more than 1,700 volunteers, compared with 1,200 in 2010, involved in SPS’ incare and aftercare work. There has also been a significant increase in active volunteers in the befriending programme, from about 38 in 2010 to 270 today, said assistant director of SPS’ Community and Engagement branch Mr Mohamed Fazly.
Challenges lie ahead that could create upward pressure on the recidivism rate, warned Second Minister for Home Affairs Masagos Zulkifli, who spoke at the awards ceremony.
Many of the inmates who will be released in the next few years will be drug offenders, including repeat offenders. They will find it difficult to reintegrate into society and are “more likely” to return to drugs or reoffend upon release, he noted.
“It isn’t easy to recruit volunteers to work with offenders,” said Mr Masagos. “It requires commitment, as our volunteers need to spend time to work with our offenders to motivate them to change.”
Another volunteer recognised was 47-year-old Mr Azman Bin Osman, too, who is a befriender to two inmates in Changi Prison and was a recipient of the SPS’s three-year Long Service Award. The aircraft technician, began volunteering with the Singapore Anti-Narcotics Association (SANA) in 1989, before working with SPS three years ago. Asked how he has managed to remain committed to volunteering, Mr Azman said: “The change is made when I see my inmates change, that is what inspired me to continue.”
CORRECTION: We had misstated Mr Mohamed Fazly’s designation in an earlier version of this report. It has been corrected. We apologise for the error.
