IMPACT 0311: WORKING TOWARDS CREATING A BETTER COMMUNITY

I am Ong Shen Kwang (or you can call me SK Ong), and I am 29 this year! I work as a project director in a financial technology firm and I am passionate about giving back to the community!

In 2017, I signed up as a mentor with my alma mater, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), because I had benefited greatly from my mentor at work and wanted to spread this positive spirit. Since then, I have mentored over 30 students, where I share about my career journey and guide them to gain clarity in their career inclination. I have also gotten the opportunity from the Ministry of Education (MOE) to engage with secondary school students and share my career experiences to give them a head start in their career paths.

Besides the field of education, I take interest in the elderly and causes that help people in need. At times, I volunteer with NTU Alumni Club (NTUAC) through events for the elderly because I enjoy listening to their life experiences that are very relevant to youths like myself today – for instance, the importance of frugality and humility in today’s society.

Recently, I have also been participating in charity drives for the needy. The latest initiative I joined was the Walk for Rice 2021 walkathon, where the organiser pledged to donate a specific amount of rice to needy families in proportion to the distance walked by the participants.

My friends would know that I love to write. Sometime in 2018, I started writing pro-bono articles for Today Online’s “Gen Y Speaks” column, mainly touching on social topics based on my personal experiences. To me, there are many common topics that are very uncommonly spoken about today – oxymoron, I know, but it is true.

For instance, eating alone, volunteering, and kinship were some of the topics that I wrote about to connect with my readers. I want to spread the message that whatever we may be going through right now, is also, more often than not, commonly experienced by others – and that we are never alone.