The fragrance of jasmine from the ‘Lady in the Saree’

The columnist with Amy Bala.

“TOO many-lah,” shrugged Amy Bala, a welfare worker of over 40 years, during our chat earlier this week

“Hundreds? Thousands?” I prompted, trying to extract a headline for the numerous welfare cases she would have handled.

“Son,” she said firmly, “how many doesn’t matter – it never has. What matters is that we are able to help others; to provide protection and safety, to give dignity, and most importantly, to create opportunity for those in need”.

Typical Aunty Amy (as I call her now). She has always known what to say and to make it a learning moment.

Speaking of moments, it was at a youth workshop organised by the Social Welfare Department that we first met.

Back then, she was “Mrs Amy Bala”, Social Welfare Dept officer. This was due to her strict and firm style in dealing with us (referring to 16-year-old me together with a bunch of other students being trained in child empowerment advocacy).

Eventually, we would all call her Aunty Amy – still strict, but with a greater bond forged out of respect for her invaluable guidance.

Today, I fondly refer to her as my second mother, and it’s been more than 15 years since.

The Lady in the Saree

Amy, now 70, has handled numerous types of welfare cases – from abandoned babies to abused children, drug addiction to sexual offences.

Despite the gamut of difficult emotions inherent in dealing with juveniles and families involved in such cases, she always wears this warm, welcoming smile whenever we meet.

By the way, Amy is most always in saree. That, and her hair with jasmine flowers which give off a lovely fragrance whenever she’s around. Or the lingering waft which says she’s been in the room.

To her, it is a representation of her culture, her being, and of the values she holds dear – unity, multiculturalism, tolerance, respect and understanding.

For her, these basic universal and timeless values are the foundations of our civilisation and of our being.

Accidental Social Welfare officer

A career as a social worker was never intentional.

“I had always wanted to become a teacher”, Amy says.

As a child growing up in a rubber plantation in Semenyih, she would follow her father, a Tamil school teacher, to work. There, she picked up a love for reading and knowledge, and aspired to follow in her father’s footsteps.

After completing Form Six at Convent Bukit Nanas in Kuala Lumpur, she taught part-time while applying for full-time teaching positions.

No teaching offer came but her application for an advertised job as a welfare assistant was successful.

Asked if she ever felt sad not becoming a teacher, she said, “Not really. I realised my passion was to work with people. I’m a people person and serving the community gave me joy and purpose”.

Her first posting, at age 22, was to the Melaka welfare department where the word “assist” in assistant reckoned greatly.

Amy recounted that her years as a welfare assistant were quite eventful – the countless hours walking under an umbrella, going to areas and places one normally would be concerned about.

Never once did she feel worried or unsafe – “but nowadays, however, it’s a different story.”

One of her assignments was at the Melaka General Hospital, to look for defaulters – not people who didn’t pay their medical bills. Rather, patients who never turned up for their medicine.

One such case involved a man who had tuberculosis (TB), which, left untreated, would be contagious. His stated address led her to a red-light district.

“Just like in the movies, the ladies in the house were all dressed in long flowing nighties. It just so happened that the TB patient stayed there”.

The medicine was dutifully delivered.

In 1978, Amy, with her years of service, qualified for a government-sponsored opportunity to go to university. She enrolled for a social worker’s degree programme at Universiti Sains Malaysia.

After graduating in 1982, she was placed at the Cheras Rehabilitation Centre where she worked with physically disabled children.

Initially, sad for them because of limitations due to their disabilities, she recounted an “awakening” moment – the children didn’t see themselves as any different.

“Most were born that way and just wanted to make good of their place in the world”.

This honed her appreciation and recognition that every child has inherent talents and just needed the opportunity to thrive.

With her growing hands-on experiences, Amy initiated more confidence-building type activities for the children.

One such child, she says, went on to become a director of an important government agency. Amy said she was really proud of him, but is mindful to add that "success stories are few and far between, even today”.

In 1984, she was relocated to the welfare department headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

Here, at the children’s desk, she researched alternative childcare. In 1996, she was placed at the international desk, working with international organisations such as Unicef where she was introduced to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

She began conducting workshops on the CRC to empower children, which is where we met.

Emerging challenges: Social media and sexual offences

Over the past 10 years, Amy has been among the panel of expert advisors in the juvenile court.

She expressed dismay at the growing number of juvenile sexual offenders.

“Previously, most cases in the juvenile court would involve children (illegally, of course) riding motorbikes. Nowadays, most are sexual offences”.

Amy believes that advancements in technology and the rise of social media have led to this.

Most importantly, she said that the source of the such problems had not actually changed from before – the lack of parental support or involvement, community participation, and better education for the children.

The consequences, however, appear to have become graver.

She cited two cases of boys in their early teens – both children of childcare centre owners – sexually assaulting young girls.

When asked how they knew about what to do, they cited watching videos over social media on their mobile phones. The parents weren’t aware, and had given their children smartphones (with data) because “everyone else was doing it”.

Another young offender had apparently watched pornography with his friends – in school. The magistrate was shocked and ordered that the school friends be located because they needed counselling.

Empowering communities through human service education

Amy believes that empowering communities as well as re-emphasising the importance of parental responsibilities is key towards creating a better society.

Similarly, universities need to redesign their curriculum to produce more inquisitive and reflective graduates – not just focus on KPIs (key performance indicators) and numbers.

She calls it “human service education”.

From schools to the university level, from homes to workplaces to community empowerment, Amy believes there are learning opportunities for valued social behaviour in these rapidly changing times.

Although it has been over 10 years since she retired from the Welfare Department, she is still actively involved as a trainer of future social workers and is an early childhood care and education (ECCE) advocate with the Malaysian Association of Social Workers (MASW), a professional body for social workers.

And so she continues persevering to teach and train welfare workers because as she said earlier, “What matters is that we are able to help others ... to create opportunity for those in need”.