Role model gets award for community work

After a career spanning almost 60 years - in which he served education, politics and the community - Mr Wan Hussin Zoohri has been honoured with the Abdeali Tayebali Lifetime Achievement Award.

Set up by the family of Ameerali Abdeali, a retired civil servant, it is presented to individuals who have contributed to the welfare of the community and proved to be role models for the young. Recipients are decided by a panel including advisers to the trust.

The award was presented to Mr Wan Hussin, 76, by the Abdeali Tayebali Family Trust and welfare organisation Jamiyah Singapore at the latter's Geylang premises. The MP from 1981 to 1991 in Kampong Ubi and later Aljunied GRC, is the third person to receive it. He said: "This award is an unexpected honour for me. I was just doing my job and doing whatever I could to contribute."

Mr Ameerali said of Mr Wan Hussin: "He is an extraordinary gentleman who is a role model for community service in Singapore." Speaker of Parliament Halimah Yaacob, guest of honour at the ceremony, said he "is most deserving of this high recognition", as a respected leader in the Malay and Muslim community in Singapore.

Born in 1937, Mr Wan Hussin studied at Raffles Institution and then the University of Malaya. He did a post-graduate course in education at Britain's Oxford University before starting to teach, then went on to become principal of Tun Seri Lanang and Mayflower secondary schools. After he retired, he remained active in the community.

He was the president of the Prophet Muhammad's Birthday Memorial Scholarship Fund for needy Muslim students, and the Tabung Amal Aidilfitri Trust Fund raised more than $5 million for the needy during Ramadan when he was chairman.

ateng@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on August 31, 2014.
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