by Kitty Leong | Jul 1, 2026 | CASS Story - EN
In March 1982, the CASS Board resolved an important position under the chairmanship of Henry, “Even without government funding, the founding aim of the Society, i.e. to provide child care service to the community, should still be realised.”
How could services be provided without funding? A group of enthusiastic and committed volunteers could be organised to take up the task. There were many such volunteers being involved in CASS.
The Board pondered on the question: What could volunteers do? What were the services that the community needed but would not require a lot of money to develop?
At that time, many young Chinese families were looking for caregivers to look after their children. However, there was not much information available, and parents did not know where to find suitable caregivers. On the other hand, many caregivers were looking for parents seeking care. CASS could provide a service to match the caregivers and the families!
The Directors understood that in Australia, caregivers looking after other people’s children had to abide by a set of Regulations. The service was called ‘Family Day Care’ (FDC). Caregivers had to be licensed to provide care legally. The government had regional agencies to manage the FDC service in the area.
The Society’s original plan was to set up a child care centre near Chinatown. Now that they had to change to FDC service, they needed to understand the different requirements. The Board thus approached Sydney Family Day Care which was managing the service in the Sydney city area. Their coordinator, Ms. Maureen Hastings, was enthusiastic and supportive of Henry’s ideas and the Society’s plan to develop service for the Chinese community. She provided the Directors with information and helped them to understand government’s requirements and regulations.
In July 1982, the Board resolved to provide a telephone referral service manned by volunteers to match parents in need of child care with caregivers wanting to provide child care service. The referral service was made possible through cooperation with Maureen Hastings.
A new question arose: where should the telephone be installed?
The Chairman of the Chinese Youth League (CYL), Mr. Peter Wong, was very supportive of the Society’s initiative to provide child care service and let the Society using their office venue free of charge to provide FDC service.
The team leapt into action. In the corner of the hall of CYL at 66A Dixon Street, Haymarket, a desk was set up and a telephone installed. The Society’s first service thus commenced operation.
The directors and volunteers promoted the service through putting up posters in Chinatown and distributing flyers. Radio 2EA (later became SBS Radio) also broadcasted the information.
As Sydney Family Day Care could only accept children and caregivers in the City of Sydney area, those residing outside the area would not be able to use the service. The original plan was to run this pilot project in the City of Sydney only.
However, when the news was released, requests for this service were received from all over Sydney. Calls from people residing around Chinatown were very few. Many Chinese were living in other areas of Sydney but went to Chinatown to buy groceries, etc. After receiving information about the child care service, many people rang our Society to enquire. The Society thus took up the role of ‘translating government policies, explaining cultural needs and facilitating communication between different parties”.
🤔Would the pilot project be acknowledged by the authorities? Stay tuned for the next article!
by Kitty Leong | Jul 1, 2026 | CASS Story - EN
In March 1982, Sydney Chinese Child Care and Community Co-operative Society (referred to as the Society below, later became CASS) had its first anniversary. When Board members and members met at the Annual General Meeting, they faced a grim situation: the hope of getting government funding was not optimistic.
Members faced the disappointing situation with a heavy heart. Someone asked, “Without government funding, we will not be able to set up the child care service. Many ethnic communities who face similar situations have resolved to disband. Should we do the same thing to disband our Society?”
Henry reminded all those present, “Do we have to have government funding before we provide community services? Don’t forget that we have made a promise to the community that the aim of establishing our Society is to provide community services. A gentleman’s word is as good as gold!” That was true not only for those days. Even for today, the goals and challenges remain the same.
The group reviewed the journey that they had travelled over the past year: designing pamphlets, making copies, distributing pamphlets, organising activities, visiting community leaders to seek their support, etc. There was no government funding, they could still achieve something, though the services available had not been considerable. They had a sudden enlightenment: they would not want to give up so easily.
The Board thus made a decision: “The founding aim of setting up our organisation is to provide much needed services to the community. With our original aspirations, we will achieve our goals whether we have government funding or not.” This has become the unchanging conviction of our Society.
Over the past forty years, CASS has maintained its conviction. Even without funding, we still try our best to serve the community. Whenever there is a community need, CASS will use its limited resources to provide the services. It is such vision and commitment that has made CASS unique and stand out among the community organisations.
How could they provide community services? They needed to organise a group of enthusiastic and committed volunteers to take up the task.
The Australian society embraces many volunteer organisations, such as volunteer fire services, boy scouts, and the then radio 2EA (later became Special Broadcasting Services SBS) which Henry had contacts. These organisations relied on enthusiastic volunteers to carry out respective community work.
Henry was volunteering. His elder brother, Peter Pan, was also active in voluntary work, helping radio 2EA to prepare Chinese news script.
At that time, Chinese newspaper was not available. People usually distributed pamphlets through shops in Chinatown. One channel of promotion was through the Chinese broadcast of radio 2EA. The Federal government provided the venue and facilities for the radio station to broadcast in various different community languages. All programs were run by volunteers then, from broadcasters to script writers. The volunteers came from all walks of life. Henry’s brother, Peter, was a volunteer news script writer.
Peter paid visit the newsroom of the radio station every week to collect the news in English sent by various different news agencies in the world. He made copies and translated the news into Chinese. He also wrote news article about information or news related to the local Chinese community and organisations and sent to the volunteer broadcasters.
With the assistance of Peter, Henry sent information on activities of the Society through broadcast to get people to participate and help with activities.
🤔What sort of work did the volunteers of our Society do at the time? Stay tuned for the next article!
by Kitty Leong | Jul 1, 2026 | CASS Story - EN
The Sydney Chinese Child Care and Community Co-operative Society (later became CASS) was formally established on 8 March 1981 at the Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre. 9 members were elected to form the Board of Directors, with Henry as the Chairperson.
It was already 3 months since the submission of the funding application to the Federal and State Governments, and nothing was heard from the authorities. Henry did phone the authorities to enquire about the progress of the submission, and the reply was, “The submission was well written. It is still under consideration.”
Everyone was very anxious. Henry further contacted the organisation that had helped with the submission earlier, the Ethnic Child Care Development Unit, to try to find out more about why there was a lack of feedback from the authorities.
In early 1980s, the domestic economy of Australia was in poor conditions, and the Federal Government was reducing expenditure on welfare. Meanwhile, due to the short history of the Society, the Government lacked confidence in the group’s management ability to administer funding.
It was thus necessary for the Society to prove to the Government that it had influence in the Chinese community to gain the trust of the authorities. Henry and Board Members took action to organise events to assist the Project.
Many Board Members had experience organising activities during their university days. They decided to organise celebrations during traditional festivals. On the one hand, they could prove to the Government that the Society had the ability to organise activities. On the other hand, they could collect fees to raise revenue for the running costs of the Society.
Enthusiastic Board Members and volunteers worked together to plan the activities. There were no Chinese newspapers at the time. The main channel for promotion was distribution of flyers or through words of mouth. The Chinese Youth League of Australia (CYL) provided a much needed helping hand at the time, helping with typing and printing the flyers.
Some Board Members and volunteers prepared food at home and brought them to the venue. Some volunteers planned and performed the singing and dancing acts. The Lunar New Year celebration was full of excitement with over 200 people attending the event. It also raised around $200 to $300, and the result was encouraging.
At the same time, Henry also took on an important task. He paid visits to leaders of various Chinese organisations, seeking their consent to sign a Support Letter. Through friends of some Board Members, they managed to contact a number of leaders of established Chinese organisations, including Hainanese Association of NSW Inc., Chung San Society of Australia, the Chinese Masonic Society and the Chinese Youth League of Australia. Henry and Board Members met those leaders and put forward the intentions of the Society. Most leaders were very supportive of the establishment of a child care service, however, there were a few organisations not rendering support.
By March 1982, A year had passed and there was no news on government funding. The situation was not optimistic. At the Board meeting, members were faced with a serious question: there seemed no hope for getting government funding!
Should the Society be disbanded? Or should they continue to pursue their original goal? What is the path ahead? Stay tune for the next article.
by Kitty Leong | Jul 1, 2026 | CASS Story - EN
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!
by Kitty Leong | Jul 1, 2026 | CASS Story - EN
Starting a business is more than reciting a slogan. It requires careful planning and execution step by step. In the last article, Mr. Henry Pan shared his experience of becoming a volunteer by accident. He has since been involved in voluntary work for over 45 years. He continues to share his experience of building the organization.
At the preparation meeting on 12 January 1980, Henry was unanimously voted to become the Convenor of the Preparation Committee.
At that time, CASS did not have any service. Henry had to start the organization from scratch to establish child care service.
He wanted to invite like-minded people to join the work. However, Mr. Wee Teck Teo who initiated the project said he needed to seek approval from the Board of the Sydney Chinese School. While Mr. Teo himself was willing to take part in the work, the Chinese School decided not to join the project, and Henry could make decisions on his own. Hence, there were only 2 people in the Project, himself and Mr. Teo.
He invited 6 to 7 of his friends to get involved in the Project. Among them included Dr. Leng Tan, Mr. Ching Tan, Dr. Cecilia Fong, Ms. Patricia Wong, Mrs. Hilda Lee plus Mr. Wee Teck Teo.
Henry found out that the government had set up an organization to assist community groups with intention to apply for funding to operate community services, supporting government’s multiculturalism policies implementation.
After consultation with that organization, Henry learnt that the task required was to submit an application with supporting data indicating the lack of culturally appropriate child care services in the Chinese community and there was an urgent need for the service. The submission required collection of data, analysis of data collected, explanation of why the service was needed, together with proposals and budget.
Henry’s professional background was an engineer, and he did not have knowledge of social research methods. Other committee members were either doctors, teachers, accountant or nurse, and they also did not have knowledge about conducting surveys. Fortunately, two heads are better than one!
How to go about with the survey? There were not too many Chinese migrants at the time. Apart from Chinatown, it was difficult to find other suburbs with a high density of Chinese residents. After discussion, committee members believed that the proposed child care center should be located around Chinatown area. They decided to conduct surveys around Surry Hills where there was a concentration of people with Chinese background. They wanted to collect data to show that the Chinese community urgently needed a culturally appropriate child care service.
From June to August 1980, Henry and the committee members gathered and coordinated a team of volunteers to carry out two significant tasks.
The first was to conduct door-to-door surveys on Chinese residents in the Surry Hills area. The task received the strong support and assistance from the Chinese Masonic Society. Volunteers chose houses with Chinese residents along Commonwealth Street and conducted interviews. They managed to survey over 80 houses with Chinese residents.
The second task was to interview female Chinese factory workers. There were many garment factories in the Surry Hills area then and most of the female workers were Chinese. Henry contacted two factories. After learning about the intention of the committee, the owners were very supportive as the factory workers needed child care services. Around 20 workers from each factory were interviewed and the result was satisfactory.
After the 2 rounds of survey, it was considered that there was a need to collect data from people in the general Chinese community to show their support for the project. How could it be done? Please stay tuned for the next article.
by Kitty Leong | Jul 1, 2026 | CASS Story - EN
Young people can benefit from getting involved in community affairs and understanding the needs of the community. These valuable experiences can help them with their careers. Mr. Henry Pan has always been interested in children’s education. He shares his story about becoming a volunteer by accident in his younger days.
It was 8 December 1979. Henry’s wife was invited by a family friend to attend a forum discussion. He had to stay home to look after their 3-year-old daughter. However, Henry was worried that the little girl might miss her mom. Seeing that it was not a formal meeting, and that he had to drive his wife to the meeting anyway, he decided to take their daughter and sit on the sideline of the meeting as an observer. His wife would be available if their daughter needed her.
The meeting was called by the then Principal of the Sydney Chinese School, Mr. Wee Teck Teo. Australia had started to implement multiculturalism policies at the time and the government encouraged ethnic communities to establish community services. Mr. Teo wished to apply for government funding to establish a child care centre for the Chinese community. He organized a forum to discuss the matter. He believed that child care was a matter closely related to ladies and thus invited women he knew to attend the forum. Henry’s wife was one of them.
There were around 20 people at the forum, and they were all actively participating in the discussion. Henry could relate to the topic and shared his daughter’s experience at a mainstream child care centre. For example, when his daughter became hot during outdoor play, the care worker would remove her child’s jacket; however, they would not help her putting the jacket on later, making her getting sick often during the colder days. Parents had to take time off to look after the sick child and it was very inconvenient.
Henry shared some of his personal views which were acknowledged by the other attendees. The participants believed that Henry should be involved in the organizational work, with the goal of getting government funding.
After the Christmas and New Year holidays, the group met again on 12 January 1980. From the original 20 plus people, only 8 to 9 joined the meeting. Many people were eager to share their views but showed reluctance to participate in organizational work.
A problem emerged after a short while during the discussion. For the project to proceed, there needed to have someone who could be available during working hours to liaise with relevant government departmental officials. The attendees at the meeting were all young Chinese migrants who all had to work and would not be available during working hours.
Henry was the only one whose work hours were quite flexible. He was a Teaching Fellow at the university. His workload was not heavy, while he was required to do his PhD studies. His research topic was noise pollution. As the equipment for his experiments was noisy, he could only carry out his experiments in the night time. He thus had some free time during the day. Everybody was looking at Henry.
Henry was unanimously nominated as the coordinator for the project. He was asked to shoulder responsibility for the organizational work.
Henry was not mentally prepared for taking up this ‘hot potato’, having to produce submission to the government asking for funding to establish a childcare centre for the Chinese community.
Henry had no previous experience in community work. It was a huge difficult task to deal with government departments.
Starting from zero without any resources, what was the journey like? Stay tuned for the next article!
💡Conclusion:
Young people often face many difficulties and challenges when they start a new career. They need to have the courage to face and conquer the challenges.
