Gen.T honouree Amanda Chong is changing lives through her non-profit ReadAble. Here's how
Amanda Chong has one hell of a CV. A graduate of Cambridge and Harvard, the 29-year-old was the top candidate at the Singapore Bar in 2013, has served as a member of the United Nations Expert Group on the International Legal Definition of Trafficking in Persons, and currently practices public international law. Perhaps most impressive, however, is her life outside the courtroom.
Chong is a poet—her 2016 poetry collection Professions was shortlisted for the 2018 Singapore Literature Prize. Last year, she received the Singapore Youth Award, the nation’s highest accolade for young people, for co-founding ReadAble, a non-profit that runs English literacy classes for children from low-income families in a Chinatown neighbourhood.
“I was born into a middle-class family, and I never lacked anything," says Chong, explaining her motivation for founding the charity. "So I feel I have a lot of privilege, because the education system is designed for someone like me to thrive in it. Children who come from less materially privileged households don’t have the luxury of just being able to focus on their education, and I don’t think that’s fair. I just wanted to be part of the solution.”