National tennis player Shaheed Alam serves up migrant worker charity event
Deepanraj Ganesan for The Straits Times
On Aug 17, which would have been his late father's 68th birthday, national tennis player Shaheed Alam honoured his memory by hosting a charity event in support of Singapore's migrant worker community.
Growing up, Shaheed, 27, was constantly encouraged by his father Meqsud Alam - who also introduced him to tennis - to always give back to the community.
Combining his love for the sport and the desire to do his part for the community, Shaheed hosted a fund-raising tennis tournament called Serving Our Heroes at Fairmont Hotel's Savitar Tennis Centre on Aug 17.
The event, which was held in partnership with ItsRainingRaincoats, a charity for migrant workers' welfare, raised over $22,000. The funds will go towards supporting the well-being and social integration of Singapore's migrant worker community.
At the event, where Law Minister Edwin Tong was the guest of honour, 13 migrant workers participated in a tennis demonstration, in which they engaged in rallies with both Mr Tong and Shaheed.
Shaheed said: "My dad has always inspired me. His life motto was 'the more you give, the more you get' and he always mentioned this to me.
"He also always encouraged me to do good things for the community and contribute as much as I can. So to be able to do this on his birthday fills me with a lot of joy."
His father was also somebody who walked the talk, with his kind acts towards migrant workers leaving an indelible mark on Shaheed during his formative years.
He recalled that dad would always offer a drink to the cleaner who carried out periodic washing of the common corridors at their Sengkang HDB flat. He would even insist on taking over the washing and encouraged the cleaner to take a rest instead.
These acts, which happened on a few occasions, showed Shaheed the importance of showing respect and gratitude to migrant workers.
Meqsud died suddenly in July 2020 aged 62, but the desire from Shaheed to make an impact in the community burns brightly.
While Meqsud could not witness his son's latest initiative, he was very proud of Shaheed's previous charity effort back in May 2020. Then, Shaheed helped to raise $7,500 to deliver meals to 880 migrant workers during Hari Raya Aidilfitri, as part of his Project Love-All initiative.
The latest idea to combine tennis and charity came when Shaheed, who is on a full scholarship pursuing a four-year degree in business administration at the Keiser University in Florida, returned to Singapore in May after his school term ended.
Then, he saw several migrant workers resting at the void deck of his HDB block on a hot day, with their food packets open next to them. It was another reminder of reality.
"It was painful to see. These are the guys that have helped build Singapore, they are the ones that are keeping Singapore clean and they make Singapore what it is," said Shaheed, who will return to the US for his final year at the end of August.
"They make a lot of sacrifices. They start work early, end late and sometimes are even treated unfairly, so I wanted to do something for them.
"And tennis has also given me a lot of opportunities in life and I thought, why don't I use it as a force for good too and use it as a means to give back to our migrant heroes?"
One of the migrant workers who tried his hand at tennis for the first time was Naveen Thavamani, 28, from Tamil Nadu, India.
Naveen, who came to Singapore in 2016 and works at S.V. Marine & Scaffolding Pte Ltd said: "At first when we came here, we were a bit scared because we have never played this sport and this place is also very new to us.
"In India, most of us play cricket and badminton but not tennis. But we really enjoyed today, the way people here made us feel welcome makes us all very happy. We hope we can get more opportunities like this."
Shaheed, who first grabbed headlines in 2015 when he became the first Singaporean male to win an International Tennis Federation junior singles title and has represented Singapore at the SEA Games and Davis Cup, hopes to stage an annual charity event to benefit various beneficiaries.
Crediting his family for being "a rock in my journey as a tennis player and through planning this event" and his sponsors for their generous help, Shaheed believes that his late father would have been proud of him.
"If he was still around, he would tell me "baik (good in Malay) lah", which is something he always said whenever we did something that made him feel very happy," said Shaheed.
