Poh Lee Tan: Age is But a Number

An alleged flying cow changed Poh Lee Tan's life.

In 2011, Poh Lee – then chairman of Asia-Pacific operations at law firm Baker & Mckenzie – cheated death in a car accident in New Delhi. Allegedly, said the driver, a flying cow had darted in front of their vehicle. How ever incredulous, the Christian Poh Lee believed her survival was God's doing; it was His calling to serve her people, with the same conviction as her late father, a doctor, did.

Four years later, she quit her job and began Mighty Oaks – a non-profit organization that offered free cataract surgeries for the elderly in Mainland China, in homage to her late father's monocular vision. Due to a change in laws in the region in 2017, however, Mighty Oaks' operations were relocated to Hong Kong, where it shifted its focus from elderly's sight to their mental and emotional wellbeing by pairing seniors across community centers, institutions and more to children as young as nursery schoolers.

The idea was inspired by her son's home-made theatre productions based on the books her mother-in-law had read to him.

"I thought of replicating the fun times my son and mother-in-law shared and magnifying that into a community level so we can become catalysts for harmony," says Poh Lee.

With a minimum duration of one school term, Mighty Oaks' intergenerational programs include students' regular visits to elderly homes to share creative arts activities like dance and music. Most often than not, the children continue their exchange even after the program has long ended. Vice versa, elders are also placed into campuses to learn alongside the class.

Secondary school students, meanwhile, are partnered with more active seniors to craft solutions for the older demographic in a year-long project, amongst other mentoring and job placement opportunities. Poh Lee cites a recent brainchild by aspiring journalists from ISF Academy, who had conducted interviews with elders to make flash cards detailing their stories and recipes of dishes they love, which were then published in the school journal and Instagram account.

Since the pandemic, children and their parents have also been recruited to phone up solitary elders to not only keep them company, but also to flag any potential threats to social workers. To Poh Lee's pleasant surprise, many of these isolated seniors eventually welcome the families to visit their homes and, occasionally, partake in community activities.

To date, Mighty Oaks has linked 30,000 students across 81 schools to 56,000 elderly beneficiaries.

Poh Lee says the programs promise a mutual benefit: while the elderly gain from the students' vivaciousness, the young – on the other hand – inherit their older buddies' wisdoms, and especially perceptible in the secondary school students' projects, life lessons like leadership, communication, persuasion and conflict resolution. One of the key goals of Mighty Oaks, adds Poh Lee, is to diminish the stereotypes of senility and decrepitude amongst seniors. Rather, they should be regarded as gems of society still deserving of attention and respect.

"In most cases, the age gap between the students and the elderly can be as wide as 70 years old; and sometimes children say the strangest things – one came up to me and asked when I was going to die!" Poh Lee reminisces with a chuckle. "The best solution for our programs is when one plus one equals three, when the sum is greater than the parts. We want children to see that the elderly have skills and knowledge that they can learn from. Age is a gift, not a curse."

Throughout the years, Poh Lee has admittedly witnessed hesitant participants – both young and old – in, for instance, the care home visits. But whatever the conflict, it almost always concludes in a happy ending.

"An old lady in an elderly facility was reluctant to join one of our activities with the visiting class; but as the school bus pulled into the driveway, her partnered student stuck his head out the window and, with the widest beam across his face, shouted, 'por por (which translates to 'grandma' in Cantonese), do you remember me?'. Her face gleamed and, of course, she joined our activity," Poh Lee recalls. "The power of the young is immense – not just in the energy they bring – but also in the miracle of touch. Elderly people in care homes are only touched when necessary – when they are bathed, fed and moved around. When students come to play with, talk to and touch them, they truly light up their day."

Mighty Oaks also doesn't shy away from taboos like death and illness. Instead, they are important lessons integrated into a horticulture lesson, where children are taught to appreciate the circle of life.

Currently, Hong Kong is home to more than 1.6 million people over the age of 65 years old, a demographic that is set to increase by more than 80 per cent by 2043, according to the HKSAR's latest 2021 census report. In a report published last year by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Salvation Army, 68.3% of elders experience loneliness – a condition Poh Lee attributes to social isolation during the pandemic and mass exodus in the last five years, stripping the elderly of their time with their family and, most importantly, grandchildren.

So Mighty Oaks' mission is more important than ever, but Poh Lee says challenges still abound.

One is convincing academic-driven schools, which already suffer from slumped student intake as a result of low fertility rates, to join her programs. Second is debunking "siloed thinking" amongst both the government, funders and communities: currently, elderly and children are funded and serviced by different departments with separate goals and targets that rarely intersect. Funding for intergenerational programs on a macro-level, though essential, are limited, she says.

"Students' interactions with seniors will plant a seed in their minds so that whatever career they pursue in the future, they'll always have empathy for the elderly," says Poh Lee. "We'll be old, our parents will be old. Intergenerational learning is a dynamic, future-forward approach to education that nurtures well-rounded, socially conscious students. It's good for their future, and its good for Hong Kong."