Many hands make light work. In March 1980, Henry invited several like-minded friends to join the Preparation Committee of the proposed project. Together they shared ideas on how to get government funding to establish a culturally appropriate child care centre for the Chinese community.
The Project received wide support from many people in the community, and many joined as volunteers. The Preparation Committee and the volunteers carried out 2 separate and different surveys in Surry Hills where there was a high concentration of Chinese residents and low paid female workers. After these initial surveys were completed, the Committee felt there was a need to have data showing the Project was widely supported by the Chinese community. They thus carried out the third survey.
There was neither internet nor Chinese newspapers at that time. It was not an easy task collecting data from Chinese migrants living in different suburbs in Sydney. After intensive discussion, it was decided to conduct telephone interviews of randomly chosen people as most Chinese families had telephones.
Henry went through the “White Pages”, a phone book which was distributed to every household, and gathered the phone numbers of listed people with common Chinese surnames. He found about 5000 numbers.
He then listed the phone numbers according to the alphabetical order of the surnames. He used a computer program to generate numbers randomly for the selection of 150 phone numbers. He gave 15 phone numbers each to 10 Committee members and volunteers, who had to interview the families through the phone, asking them 6 to 7 questions to collect their views and suggestions.
After the collection of data, analysis of the data was carried out by Henry and the results were incorporated in the submission being prepared. While the Preparation Committee was pondering who was the best person to write the submission, henry met an English-speaking friend from his university days at UNSW, Vivienne Teoh. She was doing her PhD study and was conversant with writing thesis, as such, she would be the best person to write the submission. When Henry approached her for help, she agreed without second thoughts.
Vivienne worked on the submission from August to November 1980. Henry gave a lot of suggestions and ideas. After to and thro discussions, the report was done and submitted to both the Federal and the State Governments on 1 December 1980, requesting for funding to set up a child care centre.
Another huge task faced by the Preparation Committee was: to manage government funding, a legally incorporated organisation must be formed to handle the matter.
From December to March the following year, the Preparation Committee was busy working on setting up an organisation. The Associations Incorporation Act was not in existent in Australia at the time. To become a legally registered organisation, the choice was either registering as a company or a cooperative society. The Preparation Committee chose to establish a cooperative society and the organisation name was ‘Sydney Chinese Child Care and Community Co-operative Society’. With the decision, committee members worked on recruiting members for the proposed organisation.
Sydney Chinese Child Care and Community Co-operative Society was formally established on 8 March 1981. The Formation Meeting was held at the Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre in which approximately 70 people attended. Members of the First Board were elected, and they included: Mr Henry Pan, Mr Ching Tan, Dr Leng Tan, Dr Cecilia Fong, Ms Patricia Wong, Dr Vivienne Teoh, Mrs Susie Chu, Mrs Hilda Lee and Mr Steven Sim. Henry was elected as the Chairman, with Ching Tan as the Secretary.
Was the funding application successful? Stay tuned for the next article!
