Singapore Woman of the Year 2012 Cassandra Chiu shares her story and successes in spite of her disability

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved”, said Helen Keller, an American deaf-blind author, political activist and lecturer.

It was a privilege to be able to meet Ms Cassandra Chiu in person, shortly after she was featured in TODAY. I discovered a gentle and calm person with an indomitable spirit, forged through the “experience of trial and suffering” which Helen Keller mentioned, through which we see her success today.

At the young age of 33, she is a winner of the Singapore Women Award 2012, founder of her own counselling practice, The Safe Harbour, and a proud mother of a six-year-old daughter. She has also started a new consultancy business, The New Perspective, which offers talks, workshops and consultancy specifically for the support of the visually impaired.

All this, despite being diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease — a degenerative genetic condition that leads to blindness — at only eight years old.

With her condition, Cassandra has had her fair share of navigating through unchartered waters. From a young age, she had to learn to embrace her disability and find her place in the world. There were times she went through emotional rollercoasters, dealing with her emotions of feeling lost and angry after realising how isolated and ostracised she felt.

Even as she was growing up, attending classes was tough due to her deteriorating eyesight. She refused to attend the Singapore School for the Visually Handicapped until she could no longer cope in a mainstream school at age 14. To fund her university studies, she took up any job she could get, even busking at places such as Raffles Place and Orchard Road for nine years.

Despite obtaining a Master of Social Science in Professional Counselling and graduating in the upper percentile, Cassandra was denied counselling jobs because of her visual disability. But she declared, “just because the world wasn’t prepared to give me the opportunity at that point, I wasn’t just going to sit back and wait till something happened”.

“Just because the world wasn’t prepared to give me the opportunity at that point, I wasn’t just going to sit back and wait till something happened”. – Cassandra Chiu

That prompted her to start The Safe Harbour, a counselling practice, with a classmate. “We all have storms in our lives, and different storms at different times of life. I wanted this place to be that safe harbour for the storms in the lives of others,” she said.

Cassandra attributes her achievements to her upbringing, discovering her passion and believing in herself. From a young age, she was taught to take initiative and to put in effort in doing what she wanted. She says: “My mum would never have stood for me not working”.

Finding that focussing on her strengths helped her feel less trapped, Cassandra concentrated on her interest in the social service profession and her love for competitive sports. She has represented Singapore in swimming competitions such as the Far East and South Pacific Games for the Disabled (the equivalent of the South-East Asian Games for the abled).

“It’s about self-belief. If I fall into the trap of not believing that I am capable of doing something, then I will never be able to do it,” she says.

When asked what Singaporeans can do better in supporting the disabled community in pursuing their dreams and utilising their strengths, Cassandra expressed that some infrastructure and transportation is in place. However, while the hardware is in place, it is the “software” — people’s mentality and mindset — that still needs a shift. She adds that other people’s mentalities can add to the problem, especially in the workplace or when other colleagues feel that physically disabled co-workers are not good enough.

Overall, the guiding principle of meritocracy in Singapore does open some doors to those who are willing to work hard. This is unlike in other countries where the disabled may be forced to study in special schools with limited course offerings. She says: “We’re very lucky to be given that freedom to choose our path… we are ultimately responsible for who we are as a person.”

Cassandra believes the disabled can play on equal ground and hopes that her work in creating awareness for them can shift the paradigm of how they are viewed. She emphasises, “We need to realise that everyone has their strengths, limitations and forms of impairment; those are not always physical, but sometimes in our attitudes. By focussing on the strengths and abilities rather than the limitations, employers can get the best of both worlds by balancing those qualities out across their employees.”

“We need to realise that everyone has their strengths, limitations and forms of impairment; those are not always physical, but sometimes in our attitudes. By focussing on the strengths and abilities rather than the limitations, employers can get the best of both worlds by balancing those qualities out across their employees.” – Cassandra Chiu

What lies next in the horizon for her? Cassandra is committed to continue to use her talent and pay it forward with her positivity and will. “I understand I have a bigger audience