Looking Beyond the Bureaucracy

As a Member of Parliament in Singapore, what surprised me most was the sheer range of issues that people would come to me to solve. For instance, a resident once came to my Meet-the-People session and said, “Can you convince my dad to divorce my mum?” 

That was when I realised how personal my work as a politician could get. In such cases, I would try to understand the underlying anxieties behind the request. For this resident, the core issue wasn’t that he wanted his parents to separate; it was about family dynamics that made him feel insecure about his housing situation. 

While I wasn’t in a position to give advice about his parents’ marriage, I offered to refer this resident to social workers. Over time, I also became a befriender to him. Simply having someone to talk to — someone who would listen to what he was going through — gave him a sense of psychological and emotional security.  

Experiences like this made it clear to me that many of the difficulties residents faced were rooted in deeper structural and family pressures. One of the key areas that I championed was support for caregivers, especially those looking after the elderly. In my constituency work, I often met residents who were struggling with caregiving challenges on a daily basis, whether it was financially, emotionally, or practically.  

These ground interactions helped translate into policy advocacy: How could we create easier-to-navigate caregiving support structures? How could we help caregivers who had to give up their jobs prepare for retirement adequacy? How could we better cater financially to families struggling with caregiving costs? 

We also looked at how the community could come together to make a difference. With the help of volunteers, we started an adult diaper support programme, where we brought in do-gooders and private funders to supply families with adult diapers every month. Without this, some seniors would try to extend the use of each diaper, which could lead to infections, skin rashes, and other health issues. 

Recognising the nitty-gritties of what impacts quality of life allowed us to provide resource support while also pushing for better policy structures. In the last five years, the government has increased the quantum for home caregiving grants. This tangible improvement came about because we brought the stories and difficulties from the ground directly to policymakers. 

When I announced during Singapore’s 2025 general election that I would be stepping away from politics, many residents, volunteers, and other stakeholders came forward to say they would miss me. They had found me authentic and relatable, and they hadn’t felt much of a power distance in our interactions. This was deeply meaningful to me, because constituents feeling free to express their thoughts, feelings, and even criticisms is key to trust-building.  

Since June 2025, I’ve been with Tri-Sector Associates, where I focus on facilitating partnerships between the public sector, private philanthropists, and social impact organisations.  

Each stakeholder has internal accountabilities, and my team has to look after everyone’s interests and help broker understanding between people who may hold different perspectives on the same issues. When something shifts in a project or delays occur, people can get anxious. Aligning them and bringing them back to a shared goal can be incredibly challenging. 

Although it’s no walk in the park, I remind myself that because of the experiences I’ve had — especially the trial by fire of being a politician — I’m well-prepared for this work. And if the ones who are best equipped don’t step up to it, then who would? This is the thought that keeps me going. 

Building Empathy for the System 

LKYSPP was where I began to better understand and appreciate the work that public servants do. I started to let go of some unconstructive judgments about the public sector. This informed my thinking, and ultimately my decision about whether I wanted to become a politician. 

I got to know LKYSPP through my work as the founder of Daughters of Tomorrow, which helps underprivileged women to gain financial self-sufficiency and build resilient families. There was an invitation for me to consider a place in the Master in Public Administration (MPA) programme, and it coincided with a point in my own journey where I was grappling with the limitations of my efforts. As a charity, Daughters of Tomorrow could design and deliver last-mile programmes, but there were systemic issues that could only be addressed if legislation or policies shifted. 

Around the same time, I was engaging government officials on advocacy matters, and I felt constrained in how I was presenting my case. I could highlight stories and anecdotes, but I lacked the language of policymaking. This gap made it harder to communicate effectively or anticipate the officials’ considerations. 

So I thought to myself, “If I want to do this well, who’s going to train me?” That’s what motivated me to join LKYSPP — to learn to speak the language of policymakers, understand their perspectives, and become more effective in advocacy. 

As an NGO leader, you tend to be quite impatient. You wonder: Why is this taking so long? Why can’t things move faster? Why don’t they understand these issues the way we do? But through our class discussions, I came to realise that people working in large systems have far more to navigate than we might know. In a small organisation, it’s easier to move quickly and make direct decisions. But within a large machinery, complexity is the norm.  

I remember an idea that I raised in class: Wouldn’t the citizen experience improve if frontline staff were empowered to make more decisions on their own?  

My classmates’ responses surprised me. They told me that not everyone wants autonomy, and some staff would freeze if they were required to make decisions they didn’t feel prepared or authorised to make. In fact, such individuals preferred clear guidelines. If we removed the guardrails, they might feel lost, rather than empowered. 

This was eye opening for me, and I certainly learned a lot from the LKYSPP community. I would greatly encourage people from the social services sector, or anyone who’s interested in changemaking for society, to consider doing an MPA at the school.  

I don’t think I would have been as effective in relating to, communicating with, or influencing government staff without the knowledge that I gained at the LKYSPP. Even as an MP, when taking care of the day-to-day concerns and issues on the ground for residents, I had to work with various government agencies. Having the capacity to understand how the public sector works, as well as how they navigate their systems and policy considerations, helped me to be a more effective collaborator. 

This understanding also reshaped the way that I saw the people behind the system. If you’re trying to create positive change but see people from another sector as being fundamentally different from you, it won’t make for true dialogue. What LKYSPP gave me was the ability to stop treating the public service as a homogenous block, and I started to appreciate the nuances and the different personalities in the system. We may be up against institutions, but ultimately, it’s human beings who make up the system.