\n<\/p>\n
Just recently, she gave out a community award to a delivery driver and boxing trainer who started a support group for men to open up about their mental health issues.<\/p>\n
“They’re not psychologists, they’re not doctors, they’re just two men who have gone through a lot of their lives dealing with PTSD (post- traumatic stress disorder) and trauma, and so on,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“They realise that there’s long waiting lists to see a psychiatrist or get therapy, so they went: ‘Look, let’s see what we can do to support them’.”<\/p>\n
She said it was such unsung heroes who “quietly get on with their lives while actually making a real impact to the community” that she would like to spotlight as a way to encourage other members of the community to follow suit.<\/p>\n
Mrs Williams said that growing up as a minority in Singapore, racism and prejudice were not new to her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The difference was that in Singapore, these interactions came in less overt, though not necessarily less hurtful, forms.<\/p>\n
“Growing up Malay in Singapore, I’ve had to deal with microagressions. I’d hear comments like: ‘If only more Malays are like you’ (whenever she did something well), or encounter people who held stereotypes about your community,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Wales, where Asians make up about 3 per cent of the population in Wales, and Muslims about 2 per cent, Mrs Williams has had to deal with more “in your face” racially-motivated hate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One incident happened while she was having lunch at a food court with her mother during her first few years of living there.<\/p>\n
“Somebody came up to me, hit me on the back of my head, and then said: ‘May God be with you’, and laughed and ran off,” she recalled.<\/p>\n
While the police were very supportive and prompt in helping her, they ultimately could not find the perpetrator who had fled immediately after attacking her.<\/p>\n
Another incident occurred when she received Islamophobic comments in the guise of a joke. Ironically, the comment came from an IT support staff member helping her set up a laptop when she visited an organisation to give a talk about countering extremist views.<\/p>\n
She said while she loves Singapore and being Singaporean, the culture in Wales has helped her deal with racism better.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Culturally, over here it’s not as hierarchical,<\/strong>” said Mrs Williams. “Over here you can offer challenge without being seen as being difficult or in a negative light. You can ask difficult questions, or even challenge politicians.”<\/p>\n So while she kept mum in Singapore whenever she faced racist remarks, when the IT staff member told her the inappropriate “joke”, she immediately told him off firmly.\u00a0<\/p>\n As for the incident at the food court, she immediately stood up and shouted at the person.<\/p>\n “My mum was there trying to calm me down, and I thought then that if I want to shout at someone (for doing something wrong against me), I should be allowed to,” she said, visibly animated and upset despite the incident happening almost 20 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Looking back, I think it’s a very Singaporean thing to try and calm things down, don’t shout, don’t rock the boat.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Just recently, she gave out a community award to a delivery driver and boxing trainer who started a support group for men to open up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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