Angelyn Tan, a recent junior college graduate and current intern at Singapore Teachers' Academy for the aRts, shoulders the burden of planning out her entire future at only nineteen years old. She, like many young Singaporeans, worries about many things: what she intends to do in the next months, years, and decades. At the moment, her biggest anxiety is charting out a future where she can balance both her family and personal life. In this interview, she tells SG Assist about her relationship with her parents, her worries about the future, and what she thinks of the SG Assist app. Read more to find out.
As a design intern, Angelyn is a cog in a well-oiled machine operated by experienced arts educators and artists. Her work involves graphic design and illustration, content writing, marketing, editing, publishing, logistics, and connecting with local artists. Her creative streak is evident in her choice of work, and one that informs her arts-oriented ambitions for the future.
She has applied to various universities in the United Kingdom to study English Literature or History – in some places, both. For an avid literary student, to go to a university in the UK to study the arts would be a dream for Angelyn – after all, it is the birthplace of the literary canon, with opportunity aplenty to pursue a career in the humanities. However, another part of her identity pulls her back to Singapore – her family.
She cannot bear to leave her parents alone in Singapore. Her parents are both fifty-six years old, which means that by the time she graduates from university, they would be in their early sixties. “I’m very close with them because I’m an only child,” she says. She believes that it is a natural consequence of there being “no one else around” to keep her parents busy. She doesn’t expect this relationship to change in the future: she would rather stay in Singapore than travel overseas to pursue more lucrative opportunities, if only to stay close to her parents.
In fact, Angelyn doesn’t intend on moving out of Singapore at all. She says that she wants to be ready to provide for her parents if something happens to them. “I don’t want to be overseas and receive news of something happening to them while I’m not around, and I can’t help them.” Her sentiments are broadly adopted throughout Asian culture, in that her filial loyalty supersedes all else.
Angelyn believes that the SG Assist app has the potential to help young Singaporeans make more prudent decisions if they’re assured of the health and safety of their parents. “I’d definitely use the app,” she says, because according to her, it would mitigate her fear of something happening to her parents without her knowledge. In a high-pressure situation where loved ones are suffering from a medical emergency at home, it would enable working adults like Angelyn to request swift assistance from a Kampong Hero nearby.
She also says that she would be open to volunteering as a Kampong Hero if an opportunity presented itself. As SG Assist is a community-based effort, generosity of spirit like Angelyn’s has the potential to rejuvenate the “kampong spirit” in modern Singapore. She expressed even more excitement about becoming a volunteer when told that she could learn first-aid skills, CPR techniques, and how to use an AED so that she could help a nearby resident in an emergency.
The purpose of SG Assist is to empower everyday Singaporeans in their relationships with their loved ones and their work-life balance. For future working adults like Angelyn, the app will enable them to both oversee the safety of their parents, as well as volunteer to ensure the safety of others if needed. To learn more about SG Assist, visit our website today.
Written by Liyana Adnan
Our thanks to Angelyn Tan for sparing the time for this interview.
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