Living a life that counts

By Dominic Lim Wan Xian

Year 4, Social Work Major


Dominic (centre) with SPLAT! members at NUS' Student Achievement Awards 2012 where he was recognised for his outstanding leadership

Five years ago, I founded the all-volunteer SPLAT! community arts movement that engages the public to embrace youths-at-risk and ex-youth offenders and support their rehabilitation and reintegration into society. Looking back on the journey that led me to start SPLAT!, I'm once again humbled by the life lessons that spurred me to help others.

As a teenager, many teachers told me I was a failure and would not succeed. One of them labelled me as "the most value-deducted student in the school's history". Another lamented that I was her first student to fail a subject at the GCE 'O' level examinations in her thirty-odd years of teaching.

Fortunately, there were several teachers who believed in me, journeyed with me and affirmed my strengths and potentials. Seeing beyond the disciplinary challenges, one teacher, who remains my mentor till this day, nurtured me steadfastly and encouraged me to assume leadership roles.

Before enlisting for National Service and matriculating at NUS, I had served as a relief teacher and a teacher aide. I taught students from the Normal (Academic) and Normal (Technical) streams, whom some of my ex-colleagues labelled as "condemned", "hopeless" and "incapable of success". Faced with the challenge of motivating such students in our results-driven and achievement-oriented society, it is often convenient and tempting to pigeonhole them within the confines of our preconceptions and prejudices.

Yet it was these students who taught me compassion and resilience. They inspired me to answer the call of service to our community and challenged our conventional notions of success. Above all, they strengthened my faith in the power of the human spirit to turn frailty into strength and mistakes into experience.

During National Service, I was for a period very ill with encephalitis, an acute inflammation of the brain. I experienced memory loss, weakness on one side of the body and urinary retention. Having contracted a viral infection notorious for its high mortality rate and complications upon survival, I was hospitalised for quite a long stretch. During those bedridden days, I thought about many things. I reconsidered my purpose and priorities in life and reflected on the moments when I had not given of my best.

My battle with encephalitis was life-changing. Renowned American journalist Tom Plate wrote that life comprises many more yesterdays than tomorrows. I would add that the supply of tomorrows may cease unexpectedly. One patient whom I had chatted with the previous night suddenly passed away the next day. A friend reminded me that a life well lived is judged not by the certificates and medals which adorn our caskets but by the number of individuals whose lives we have impacted.

SPLAT! is my way of empowering young lives to seize every moment, realise their potential and inspire others to give of their best for the betterment of society. It is this conviction that there is intrinsic worth and untold capabilities in every individual which propels our volunteers to journey tirelessly with youths-at-risk and ex-youth offenders.

Since 2006, SPLAT! has educated and engaged more than 50,000 individuals to accept and offer second chances to youths-at-risk and ex-youth offenders. It has also developed almost 800 volunteers, youths-at-risk and ex-youth offenders, and raised more than S$16,000 for outreach programmes for these youths. It was conferred the Gold Award of the Youth Service-Learning Award by the National Youth Council and honoured as a case study at the UNESCO Asian Youth Forum.

But all these, I strongly feel, do not call for celebration. That much is achieved just means there is, in the first place, a lot to be done. It implies that there are yet many youths-at-risk out there needing attention and help. Come the day when we work ourselves out of the job, that will be the time indeed to celebrate.

To read another story on Dominic at AsiaOne's Edvantage portal, click here.

4 April 2012