In 2015, eleven women were added to the Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame, run by the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations (SCWO). Four of them cover very different ground: a military pilot, a civil society activist, a pioneering social worker and the founder of a migrant workers’ charity.
The hall began as a virtual gallery. It launched on 14 March 2014 with 108 initial inductees, and the 2015 group was the next intake.
Who is Koh Chai Hong?
The SCWO calls her a trailblazer in the Singapore Armed Forces. In 1999 she and another woman Major were promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, the first women to reach that rank in the military hierarchy.
Her flying career began earlier. She joined the Junior Flying Club and received her private pilot licence within seven months. In 1979, according to the original profile, she became the first woman to qualify as a Republic of Singapore Air Force pilot. She was the only one of the first four female pilots to finish advanced training on a jet. In 1981 she became a flying instructor, and she rose to be the first female Flight Commander and then Squadron Commander of Standards Squadron. She was also the first woman admitted to the SAF Command and Staff Course, in 1997.
Her hall profile says she later worked for Lockheed Martin as a simulator instructor, training RSAF pilot trainees in Perth, Australia.
Why is Constance Singam called the mother of civil society?
Born in 1936, she came to activism late. Her activist career began after she was widowed. She joined the women’s rights group AWARE when it was launched in 1986 and helped push it to take on subjects then seen as taboo, including domestic violence. She went on to be AWARE’s president for three separate terms.
Her hall profile says she has led women’s organisations, co-founded civil society groups, written newspaper columns, spoken at countless forums, co-edited books and written a memoir. The Singapore Advocacy Awards, started in 2014, were created to recognise the country’s activists. Her later books include Never Leave Home Without Your Chilli Sauce, from 2016, and she co-edited The Art of Advocacy in Singapore in 2017.
What did Janet Yee do for children’s rights?
The hall describes her as a pioneering social worker and advocate of children’s rights. She played a leading role in securing citizenship rights for abandoned children in Singapore.
She joined the Social Welfare Department in 1955 and became its Deputy Director in 1983. In 1985 she led the launch of Singapore’s first parenting education programme. In 1986 she became Deputy Director of Family Services, overseeing 11 welfare institutions. She died on 25 October 2019.
What is Bridget Tan known for?
The hall honours her as a champion of migrant workers’ rights. She was born in 1948. She worked in human resources in the private sector until she retired at 55. She then founded the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics, known as HOME, in 2004. The charity ran a 24-hour helpline, a shelter, a legal clinic, vocational training and health screening. By 2015 it said it had helped more than 50,000 migrant workers and trafficking victims. The governments of Thailand and the Philippines have also honoured her work.
Who else was inducted in 2015?
The list of honourees also includes Agnes Joaquim, who was the first woman in the world to breed a hybrid orchid, and Chua Jim Neo, author of The Definitive Mrs. Lee’s Cookbook. The profiles are on the SCWO’s Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame site, which is organised by category and year of induction.