SINGAPORE: Mdm Sarimah Amat, 53, was bathing her second foster child, a cheerful four-year-old boy with infantile epilepsy, when she made a decision she would soon regret.
Mdm Sarimah is fiercely passionate about nurturing children and watching them grow. She had worked as a kindergarten teacher and silat instructor, before a serious knee injury, aggravated over all those years running around kids, forced her to stop.Mdm Sarimah has three children of her own, and the void of not having anything to do compelled her to look at fostering."I don't want to become a vegetable," she had told herself.
Since then, Mdm Sarimah felt as though fostering was her calling, a responsibility to shower parental love on a child who has been abused, neglected or abandoned. In some cases, their parents have a physical or mental illness, or are in jail. Her community efforts do not end there. She runs a programme to provide stationery and essentials to needy children locally and abroad, and started an initiative to look after the disadvantaged and elderly across 16 blocks in her neighbourhood.
Mdm Sarimah said the award has spurred her to do even more."I feel like my contributions are small compared to other people, like philanthropists," she said, although she feels everybody can start small. Then the incident in the toilet happened, and Mdm Sarimah decided she could no longer keep up. Weeks later, she received the terrible news over the phone.
Including the four grandnephews and grandnieces who had lived with Mdm Sarimah since 2009, there could be nine children at home at one point."It was like a childcare centre," she exclaimed. When asked if she ever got tired having so many children, Mdm Sarimah simply replied:"I always tell myself it's like a challenge.""My grandnieces and grandnephews came with scabs and lice in their hair, without knowing how to read or count. I cleaned them, and in three months, they were singing karaoke. It gives me joy to see them accomplish."Mdm Sarimah said she gave all her children, natural or not, equal treatment and love, including in what they got to eat and wear.
Singapore Latest News, Singapore Headlines
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