Mental illness can be difficult for people to understand. It is a delicate transition for someone to look at a person engaging in strange behavior and label that as a disease and not simply as weird. As a result, for people suffering from mental illness, it can be difficult to transition out of treatment programs and back into the real world because employers have difficulties identifying the difference between illness and a behavioral issue.
For CPA Genevieve Ng, making sure that the mentally ill are able to make this transition is of the utmost importance. Ng currently heads up finance and development at GCoreLab in Singapore. It is a company that researches clean energy solutions, but she spends her spare time volunteering to help people with mental health problems find employment.
She began working with the mentally ill nine years ago, initially with adults but began working with children in 2008. Her time there has inspired her to begin exploring ways to bring patients back as functioning members of society by helping to secure them paying jobs and affordable tuition.
In Singapore, the stigma of mental health issues has prevented many people from getting the attention they deserve. Ng believes that helping to find jobs for the mentally ill will help to repaint mental illness as something normal and treatable and lead more people to seek treatment.
As an accountant, Genevieve Ng adds value to her company by keeping track of their valuables. However, when it comes to her community, she believes that it is her responsibility to be a, “value-adding global citizen”. By using her experience as an accountant to equip and prepare patients to reenter the workforce, Ng is making an impact on her community for mental health patients across Singapore.
