ACV10: Listen to The People You Serve (Dr Goh Wei Leong, Founder of HealthServe, Part 1)

Dr Goh Wei-Leong, a general practitioner, co-founded and chairs HealthServe (instagram, twitter: @HealthServeSG), an NGO that reaches out to under-served foreign workers in Singapore. HealthServe and Wei-Leong were awarded the ‘Singaporean of the Year 2017’. He has a personal mission to be a ‘Catalyst Bringing Life!’ and is passionate about social justice and connecting people to one another. He also thoroughly enjoys engaging millennials over a good cappuccino. Dr Goh cares deeply about life and keeps a regular rhythm of rest, reflection and work to constantly calibrate true north.

I talk to Dr Goh Wei Leong about how he started Healthserve, and the lessons he has learned along the way.

1. Develop a practice of reflecting and articulating your experiences. Dr Goh mentions that what consolidated the lessons that he had learned from the mission trip was articulating these thoughts to his friends. Having to put your thoughts into words forces you to process them on a deeper level.
2. Think about overseas mission trips not as siloed events, but as part of a larger narrative about being generally attentive to the needs of people around you and growing to become a better person. Actively think about how this mission trip fits into the rest of your life, and how you would apply what you’ve learned on a day to day basis.
3. Whenever you start something, there’s a good chance that you’ll miss what people really want/need. Instead, you need to listen to the people you are serving, and find out what their needs actually are. You might have grand plans, but mix that with the humility of engaging your users and learning from them.

• Healthserve http://www.healthserve.org.sg/
• Linking hands (Dr Goh’s first charity) http://www.linkinghands.org/whoweare.aspx
• Karunya Community Clinic https://www.healthcare.com.sg/item/karunya-community-clinic/
• Geylang (Singapore) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geylang_Road
• Mukul Hossine https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/migrant-poet-construction-worker-mukul-singapore-bangladesh-11817978 (This story is a very worthwhile read)
• Me, Migrant (Mukul’s book of poems) https://www.ethosbooks.com.sg/products/me-migrant
• Braving Life (Mukul’s second book of poems) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36647515-braving-life

People mentioned: Simon Mahendran, Tang Shin Yong, Tan Lai Yong

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