From A Sassy Interview With Teresa Kok:You are a founder-member and advisor of the Malaysia Spring Single Mothers’ Society. How on Earth did a bachelorette like you get caught up in this?
Teresa: It’s just like entering into politics, it is something which I have never planned in life and it just happened unexpectedly.
When I entered into Dewan Rakyat, I always hear the term ibu tunggal (single mother) mentioned by some Malay male MPs. Then I discovered a few of my friends are divorcees and single mothers. Besides, I also have handled a few single mothers’ cases in my service centers.
This prompted me to organise a forum at a hotel some time in March 2001 with the theme “having tea with single mothers”. It was a good gathering with about 70 participants. Those women had a great time chatting among themselves. At the end of the event a few single mothers approached me and asked me to network them. I then invited them to my service centre and they started to have monthly gathering in the presence of a cousellor. That’s how it started.
It is not easy to set up a society like this too, especially when we did not have fund in the beginning. I have to foot the expenses for the group’s early activities. And then there was misunderstanding among some of them and I had to step in to mediate. It was extra work for me.
Thank God the society can now run on its own and members can manage things by themselves. I have a rather good executive secretary to run the society, and the public is now more familiar with the society and some of them have been giving us donations and even help us to organise events to raise fund. The society has also managed to get funding from Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development for some training camps and seminars.
The issues of single mothers can never be resolved completely. I never expected that a seed that I planted accidentally can turn into a tree and grow steadily now. I believe this is a surprise and blessings bestow by the Almighty God.
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