Blending into a crowd is the last thing Dana Lam, 56, three-time president of the Association of Women for Action & Research (Aware), wants to do. Not that she is in danger of doing that anytime soon.
Her current look features big, neon earrings and colourful totes made of recycled detergent packaging paired with a white shirt, jeans and booties.
Her unruly mop of curly hair is curiously streaked with grey highlights – to match her natural grey at the crown, she says. When she became president of Aware for the first time in 2000, she had a tattoo of a fish on the inside of her left wrist.
It was inspired by Francesco Clemente’s drawings of a fish seen in the 1998 remake of Charles Dickens’ coming-of-age story Great Expectations.
“I’m really quite afraid of being subsumed by group thinking. I work hard at deciphering my own thoughts, feelings and perspectives,” says Dana, who is also an artist, writer and part-time lecturer at LaSalle College of the Arts.
It was this desire to find her own voice that led Dana to Aware in 1998. She was doing research for an art exhibition project on what defines womanhood and met Aware founders, Constance Singam and Zaibun Siraj.
She later joined the organisation and went on to become its president in 2000, 2001, and once again this year.
“It was so uplifting to be sharing exciting ideas with other women,” she says. “My association with Aware really broadened my mind. I will do all I can to keep it alive.”
COMING INTO HER OWN
Born in Singapore and given away as an infant, Dana grew up in an adopted family of seven children in Penang where she says: “I never felt I had any legitimacy in the house.” She was the fourth child and was made to do all the housework, even before she completed her schoolwork.
“If someone saw me sitting down with a book, they’d give me a chore to do.”
She adds: “My adoptive parents were restrictive and did nothing for my self-esteem. I was always asked to shut up and sit down. So you can excuse me if I refuse to do that now.”
Dana returned to Singapore when she turned 18. She supported herself through university by working as a personal assistant. The academic environment helped her come into her own as an inquisitive, outspoken young woman.
“I was the kind who would raise my hand and ask lots of questions,” recalls Dana, who once posed a question in a crowded auditorium about Singapore being a cultural desert to then-prime minister Lee Kuan Yew when he visited the campus in the ’70s.
In her third term as Aware president, Dana believes she will be leading the group with a maturity she did not have nine years ago. “I am passionate, but I can step back and reflect on myself and the situation.”
Being accountable to an unprecedented 3,000 members is a challenge no previous president had to contend with. Dana’s priority is to take the views of all its members so Aware can tailor programmes to meet their needs.
There will also be discussions on issues, such as those brought up at the fateful Extraordinary General Meeting held on May 2nd.
Dana is prepared “to work 24 hours a day” to juggle her day job as an art lecturer at LaSalle and volunteer work at Aware.
“I just want to understand people, communicate with them and bridge gaps. It might all seem naive, but in pushing for change in society, I think you need some innocence to know it is possible.”
