It is indeed worthwhile emulating a
person who is 66 years old and still serving the community. At his age, most people would be thinking of retiring and leading a comfortable life with their family, but not Charles Lingham. Charles is the head of the nursing department and public relations officer for Sunlove Home. He has been with Sunlove since 1999 and he also recruits and trains volunteers as well as organizes activities for the home.

His enthusiasm to volunteer his services to the community is so overwhelming that his boss decided to nominate him for this year's Life Inspiration Awards. The Life Inspiration Awards was initiated by the Central Singapore Community Development Council (Central Singapore CDC) and North East Community Development Council (North East CDC) to recognize outstanding senior citizens who have contributed to the community or who have been inspirational to the people around them.
When Charles first got to know that he was one of the ten recipients of the award from Central Singapore CDC, he was both surprised and ecstatic.

However, he reiterated that while winning the award gives him a sense of recognition, "giving love to be loved" was the driving force behind his unadulterated passion.
The Life Inspiration Awards is the first award that gives senior citizens an opportunity to go overseas to further strengthen their learning and enhance their future contributions to the community. From 7 to 14 November 2002, Charles took part in the Shanghai Elderly Exchange Programme.

The primary objective of the programme was to instil community spirit among senior citizens. Although it was his first time to China, not knowing the language was not a barrier as he was paired up with a Chinese buddy. Amongst their many activities, he felt that the visit to a local family was very meaningful to him. He observed that the Chinese family had an extremely tight bond and the elderly in the family were often held in awe and treated with the utmost respect. Filial piety is ubiquitous and there was strong interaction between the young and the old.

Back in Singapore, he intends to gather some of his ex-colleagues to provide free nursing services to the disadvantaged and abandoned old folks.

So far he has received positive responses and things are progressing smoothly. He believes that a mindset change is vital if there is to be more interaction between the old and the rest of the community. Most of all, he would like to see more senior citizens coming out and playing a more active role within the community.