THE labour movement's Unit for Contract and Casual Workers (UCCW) is giving out bursaries and scholarships to the children of cleaners and other contract workers for the first time.

Among the recipients at a ceremony yesterday was Miss Thahira Begum Mohamed Nordin, 19, a student at Institute of Technical Education College Central.

Her mother has been the sole breadwinner since her father died of leukaemia 13 years ago.

The $670 monthly salary that Madam Jamaliya Bagam Naina Mohamed earns as a cleaner goes to pay for groceries, utility bills and pocket money for Miss Thahira Begum and her two siblings, aged 21 and 15.

'I will use the $300 bursary to buy my school books when the term starts on Tuesday and to top up my ez-link concession card,' said the final-year infocommunications technology student, who hopes to go for further studies at a polytechnic.

Her situation is typical of the 96 people who received their awards yesterday.

The UCCW is helping contract and casual workers as they are not union members and do not qualify for bursaries and scholarships given out by unions, its director, Mr Zainudin Nordin, told The Straits Times.

The unit hopes that the 88 bursaries and eight scholarships, worth a total of $18,800, will go some way to help children get a leg-up in life through education.

Mr Zainudin, who is Mayor of Central Singapore District and an MP for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, cited his own experience.

His father was educated up to Primary 6 at a madrasah and later worked as a security guard at a shipyard, earning $70 a month. The family was not well-off and home was a one-room rental flat in Queenstown.

But his father taught him and his three siblings to read early in life.

'Every day my father made sure we had the Berita Harian and The Straits Times at home. So I was reading these newspapers since I was in primary school. My sisters also took us to the library over the weekends,' he recalled.

Mr Zainudin said he benefited from bursaries in primary and secondary school. He was also awarded an Economic Development Board scholarship to study engineering in France.

Madam Jamaliya Bagam, 41, who has a Primary 6 education, hopes her children will learn from the example of Mr Zainudin.

'I always tell my children that people are helping us out when we face difficulties. So once they have good jobs and money, they must give back and help others,' she said.

GOH CHIN LIAN

This article was first published in The Straits Times.