Mr Chan Soo Sen,

Minister of State for Education and our Guest-of-Honour

Mr Koh Poh Tiong,
Chairman, Executive Committee, Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation

Mr Koh Nai Teck,
President, The Society for the Physically Disabled

Scholarship Award Recipients and Friends

Good Afternoon

Welcome to today’s SPD-Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation Scholarship award presentation.

With the support of various corporate sponsors and well-wishers, The Society for the Physically Disabled has been providing financial assistance and other support services to needy physically disabled students as well as students with physically disabled parents since 1985. The launching of the SPD-Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation Scholarship marks another milestone in the SPD Education Programme.

We are indeed heartened that the Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation has come forward to work with us to offer scholarships for students with physical disabilities who excel in their academic studies to continue in their pursuit of excellence in their studies at the local universities. The Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation has pledged to provide two scholarships every year for four years, with a commitment of up to $220,000. We would like to say a special “thank you” to the Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation for its generous support.

Although we had planned to award two scholarships each year, this year we have three very deserving students, a young lady and two young men. We are very glad that the Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation has kindly agreed to award the scholarship to all three of them.

They are:

• Miss Nurulasyiqah Mohammad Taha;
• Mr Liew Chong Choon; and
• Mr Cai Zhenquan

Nurul and Chong Choon are second-year students at the Singapore Management University while Zhenquan is a third-year student at the National University of Singapore. Nurul is doing Accountancy, while Chong Choon is reading Business Management and Zhenquan is pursuing a Computer Science degree.

To Nurul, Chong Choon and Zhenquan, our heartiest congratulations. We wish each of you every success in your studies. We hope you will continue to work hard to achieve excellence not just academically, but also be an inspiration to others. Having come so far and with your achievements, all three of you are good role models. We hope others, especially those with disabilities, will have you as role models to look up to and be inspired to achieve greater heights for themselves too.

As you forge ahead to pursue your dreams, I hope you will also find some time to help us to make this world a better place for people with disabilities. All those of us, myself included, who have benefited from the generosity of kind benefactors in our lives, have a social obligation to help those who are less fortunate or less well off than us. Together, we can make a difference. The hopes and dreams of many other people with disabilities lie upon our shoulders.

In conclusion, we would like to express our thanks and appreciation to the Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation once again for its support and generosity in making the scholarship possible. To the three scholarship award winners, I congratulate you once again and we look forward to having you join us to help create a better tomorrow for people with disabilities in Singapore.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen.