She once interviewed boy bands – now she fights for migrant workers’ dignity and rights

Chok is perhaps best known for being one of the key figures who supported Indonesian domestic worker Parti Liyani throughout her high-profile, four-year legal ordeal, in which she was accused of stealing from her employer, former Changi Airport Group chairman Liew Mun Leong, and his family.

To think that Chok almost trod a path in entertainment and lifestyle journalism instead – in her younger days, she wrote for the now-defunct Lime and i-S magazines. And while she enjoyed her time there, those stints did little to satisfy her deep-rooted yearning to help others.

LEARNING TO LOOK

Chok, 53, grew up with a prominent architect father and a medical social worker mother. Her late father, Chok Yan Hoi, was the brains behind two of Singapore’s most iconic structures: Tan Boon Liat Building in Outram and the former Crown Prince Hotel on Orchard Road (where Pullman Singapore Orchard stands today).

While her dad played a role in shaping Singapore’s built environment, her mum, Judy Chok, who worked at the former Woodbridge Hospital (now the Institute of Mental Health), also contributed to society in her own quiet way.

As a child, Chok would sometimes tag along on outings with her mother’s patients. Later, when her mother volunteered at Singapore Cheshire Home, which supports adults with physical disabilities, she went along too.

“I watched her being part of interactions with people who are generally stigmatised in the community, but were not treated as stigmatised in that setting,” she recalled.