Probed to go deeper into the reasons why she cares about The Hood Jurong project, Wanqing landed on the vision of ‘unlocking potential’. 

“I want to help these seniors to amplify and realise the potential of what they do. Through our conversations with them, we realise how challenging it can be for them on their own. They worry about how and who will sustain this work beyond them. My hope is that Hood Jurong can be that channel for them to reach out to more people.” 

Because… if you do not know what your neighbour is doing, you can’t start to care about them and what they do, much less join them!  

So why does the idea of ‘potential’ resonate so strongly with Wanqing? And when did that begin for her? It actually begins in a place quite unexpected and different from the world of seniors- in Eden School, a school for children with special needs. 

Wanqing shows us the homescreen on her phone; it shows her smiling next to a young boy. Everyone thinks it’s her child or a nephew, but it is actually the 7 year old boy that she was attached to help, back when she was just an intern at 18 years old. 

She recalls, the motto of the school was ‘Where potential is maximised’. “But I came to understand that potential looks very different for everyone. Many of these kids came into the school not having had access to early intervention, and they didn’t have structures and routines.” 

“This boy I was working with, the first day, he just kept running around under the turning fan.” She was sad thinking that he will probably not be able to get a job in the future. But she came to realise, “for him, progress is holding a spoon properly, settling into a routine; it looks different for everyone”.  

“It helped me to redefine what potential means” she says. Today, Wanqing channels her life and energy towards maximising the potential of “those in between”. At Hatch, she works to provide digital training training and internships for those who’ve dropped out from school. At Hood Jurong, she works to highlight the meaningful work that these ‘hidden’ seniors on the ground are doing, and to celebrate and amplify that. 

“I think it would be a huge waste if their efforts were to remain unseen, and worse, if it should die out because there is no one to carry on,” she says.  

While one may be quizzical as to what motivates Wanqing to devote so much of her time and energies to a cause that lies on the fringe; through her sharing, I could see that for her, it is about the potential of every individual human being, and every endeavour of love. It also goes to show that it goes beyond a cause and a target audience; from working with children with special needs to youths who have dropped out of school, her passion to ‘unlock potential’ brings her to new places and people- the seniors in Yuhua.    

As we close, Wanqing reflected, “I am starting to see the link between the main work of Hatch and Hood Jurong; and why I’m so invested in growing this!”