Malaysia Leading Newspaper Commented on the Work of the Sarawak Cheshire Home and Dato Sri Ang Lai Soon for the disabled.

KUCHING, MALAYSIA, October 30, 2016 /EINPresswire.com/ -- NEW STRAITS TIMES EDITORIAL COMMENT


A spotlight on charity


28 OCTOBER 2016 @ 11:01 AM BY JOHN TEO

Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, visits Malaysia this week and will also be making a side trip to Sarawak. As with any royal visit, a spotlight is always directed towards local charities. In the words of Datuk Seri Ang Lai Soon, who has made charity and volunteerism his all-consuming life’s work and who leads the Sarawak Cheshire Home, a shelter in Kuching for those with disabilities celebrating its golden jubilee this year, the British royal family seems able to do a better job than most with its patronage of worthy charities. Perhaps being the world’s best-known royals gives the family an outsized bully pulpit for the job. Ang is regarded as a pioneer in Sarawak charity concerns and held up as an exemplar in the field. Rightly so, too. The Sarawak Cheshire Home has grown to become a magnet for kind and generous souls, who think nothing of dropping food and cash by the home and disappearing into anonymity. Such is the level of trust built up by the institution that donors dispense with the demand for even basic accountability in return for their generosity. But, there is the ever-present danger of killing an institution by smothering it with undemanding kindness, of course. Ang’s usual advice is to request donors to do the home a favour by always insisting on getting acknowledgement for their donations by way of official receipts to allow it ease in properly tracking and accounting for all donations. The home is run by humans, not angels, said Ang, and as elsewhere, temptations may sometimes prove irresistible. Public donations in cash and kind have meant that the Sarawak Cheshire Home is largely self-financing and not dependent on the government. But, as with every such institutional entity, the biggest concern is inevitably operational expenditure and keeping that under control. Human resource management is as much a requirement for the proper functioning of a charitable concern as it is with any corporate body or organisation. By Ang’s telling, this is a long-term struggle, made perhaps more acute by the fact that people generally seem better disposed to part with cash and other material donations than volunteering their time to help out in the running of charitable institutions. In so far as attention from visiting royalty serves as inspiration by attracting a focus on volunteering one’s precious time in the service of those less fortunate, it will be most welcome attention. As the state and nation progress, there is likely to be a need for more, not less, charitable outfits. The pressures to make ends meet may only mean double-income families become increasingly the norm. That creates a chain reaction as dependent family members, such as the very young and very old, may increasingly have to find their care outside. Such growing social needs can be addressed by publicly-funded amenities only to a certain extent if state budgets are not to be severely pressured. Will public charities be part of the answer to fulfil such needs? If so, are proper safeguards in place to ensure charities are less susceptible to abuse by those placed in charge of them? The Sarawak Cheshire Home is fortunate to be led by someone of well-known impeccable integrity in Ang. But, if anecdotal evidence and reported cases of scandalous abuse of trust are anything to go by, this Sarawak showcase may sadly be more an exception rather than the norm. Through meticulous care and wise investment decisions made over the years, Ang has built up a comfortable and enviable nest egg in the Sarawak Cheshire Home. He is also amenable to branching out into other charitable causes. Ang’s stewardship of the Sarawak Cheshire Home is thus a rather rare, uneventful and much underappreciated gem in our maddeningly frenetic world of political turf wars and business rivalries providing us with more than the fair share of drama, publicity stunts and often less-than-uplifting entertainment. Indeed, much needless human suffering can be, and is, the unintended result of all these. Our modern-day human drama can make the likes of Ang seem like a throwback to a more laid-back world of yesteryear. We hardly appear to be producing many more individuals in his mould. Which really is such a pity. And the world all the poorer if those of us able and willing are instead consumed by other pursuits. John Teo is a Kuching-based journalist

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