EMPOWERING THE ELDERLY

Prestige Anew Ball 2022 Patron Award winner DR MARY ANN TSAO, who is the personification of graceful ageing, gives us a rare insight into the experiences that have prepared her for being a champion for the greying population.

- MAVIS TEO

“We understand what a younger person thinks because we have been there, yet we don't know much about the older person. I want this essential conversation to start now," said Dr Mary Ann Tsao during the Asia-Pacific conference for the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing in Bangkok earlier this year.

This speaker needs little introduction. Born into one of Asia's most illustrious families, 67-year-old Mary Ann is the second child of the late Frank Tsao, a shipping magnate and the founding chairman of Suntec City Development. While her name has been synonymous with eldercare and ageing issues for many years, the Tsao family has always been well-known for its dedication to philanthropy and community service.

In 1992, one year before her late grandmother Tsao Ng Yu Shun chaptered the Tsao Foundation, the US-trained pediatrician had been summoned back to Singapore from the US where she was living since she was 12. While the intention was for the then 30-something to head the organisation, Mary Ann had already been thinking about ageing-related issues that confront the population at large, across income sectors and demographics, through many conversations with her granny.

Thanks to these two ladies, Tsao Foundation has since been steadfast in its objective to empower and enable older people to have a better quality of life through a holistic approach encompassing eldercare, training and education. But service to the community must run through Mary Ann's blood, for her lifelong passion for uplifting others began even before that.

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