Young bosses prove age is just a number

From shelter life to serving others

- Nurul Anisah

Mr Muhamad Imran Mean had just started Secondary 1 at Riverside Secondary School in 2014 when he was badly bullied.

A friend he lent money to refused to pay him back, kicked him in the back and spat on his face.

"I sat at home for about six months doing nothing, just crying," says Mr Imran, 23, who was so affected, he skipped his examinations that year.

Seeing his distress, a relative helped him transfer in 2015 to Woodlands Secondary School, where he repeated Sec 1.

He joined the student council in Sec 2 and the teacher in charge encouraged the then introverted teenager to join grassroots activities to hone his leadership skills.

He participated in meal distribution drives and outreach initiatives, among other things.

At home, though, he faced hardship when his parents decided to move back to Singapore in 2017, but could not find a suitable rental flat.

His father, a security guard, had moved the family to Johor Bahru in 2009, when Mr Imran was eight, though he continued to attend school in Singapore.

The family of four stayed with his aunt for about 10 months, until a family service centre found them a shelter home a year later.

It was a three-room flat in Woodlands which they shared with a family of six for 10 months.

During that time, he and his younger brother, now aged 19, relied on the school's financial assistance scheme as their parents could not afford to give them pocket money.

His father was the sole breadwinner, they had debts to settle, and their savings in ringgit converted to much less in Singapore dollars.

"I didn't have a choice of what to eat. I didn't have a proper bed to sleep in - it was one bed shared by four people. There were no options," he recalls of that trying period, when he was in Sec 3. He would take on odd jobs like waiting tables to earn cash.