Eng Zhen Shen is a strong believer that everyone deserves equal educational opportunities and works with multiple educational organisations to mitigate this issue.
After noticing an opportunity gap in the debate talent pool, he alongside three other friends co-founded DebateLAH – a non-profit passion project supported by UNICEF Malaysia under the Youth Advocacy Guide Small Grants Application (YAG-SGA) that aiming to democratise access to debate. The non-profit goes beyond just transferring debate skills to students with limited resources, it also integrates elements of advocacy by highlighting prominent societal issues on its social media platform. In their Sembang Sessions series, DebateLAH engages ex-debaters that work in the field of advocacy to motivate budding debaters to develop themselves and look beyond debating.
Zhen Shen is also a prominent member of Projek Anak Malaysia (PAM) under the Charisma Movement as the Director of Community Engagement and Partnerships. His work at PAM has helped the organisation to make allies out of external organisations to further improve their two-week development programme for underprivileged primary school students.
As a Deputy Resource Director for Tutors In Action, a free tuition initiative started by SPM graduates for SPM students, he gets the hands-on opportunity to teach and provide the necessary resources for the scholars after him. Wearing his heart for education on his sleeve, Zhen Shen models the change he wants to see.
To me, making an impact means instigating positive change in a community – be it big or small – having it inspire others to resonate with the cause and take action themselves.