As a norm I successfully avoid speaking at these functions as my honourable Minister will do the talking. However this is one occasion when I must say something as two of the Merdeka Award recipients have touched my life personally. So when Yang Berhormat Dato Sri Shahrizat asked me to organize this function I was ecstatic. And I’m now heading an Institution that is tasked with developing women so as to ensure that they will be empowered, I thought that is only appropriate that at this occasion when we are honouring 3 great ladies that we focus on their role in empowering other women. After all at the Merdeka Award ceremony they have been recognized for all their other outstanding contributions to the nation and society.

 The Ministry of Women, Family and Community development, the NAM Institute for the Empowerment of Women or NIEW, and all the other Agencies under the Ministry salutes Yang Amat Berbahagia Tun Dr Fatimah Hashim, Yang Berbahagia Dato PG Lim, and Yang Berusaha Professor Dr. Halimaton Hamdan for receiving the Merdeka Award for 2009, particularly, we recognize, appreciate, and celebrate your roles as mentors to other women of Malaysia.

The great things is that Yang Amat Berbahagia Tun and Yang Berbahagia Dato PG Lim were empowering women by their actions without them even realizing it as in those days the terms and concepts of “empowerment” and “mentoring” were so unknown. Tun talks of those that she “didik”. For in those days that was what we knew it as, didik, tunjuk ajar. In fact when I asked Dato PG Lim about her mentoring or empowering work, she said that she did not do any. Ladies and gentlemen we will hear later how with just one of the activities she contributed in empowering millions of Malaysian women then, now and in the future. And the Ministry and NIEW take cognizance of great role of these 2 icons in empowering the women of Malaysia.

As I said earlier, I myself benefited from these great ladies. In 1975, when I became the President of the University Women’s Association of the University of Malaya, and at the same time the Ketua Dua of Pertiwi I used to work with Tun in NCWO. I learned from her, without her realizing it, how to lead and organize, not to mention the social graces and the dos and don’ts when NCWO received the visit of Mrs. Annuar Sadat, the wife of the President of Egypt then. I observed how Tun juggled her time between her busy scheduled and her family to ensure that her children all grew up highly successful and well balanced individuals. And I am sure that there are many more of my generation who were silently and directly mentored by Tun.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the University Women’s Association at that time also acted as a pressure group in demanding a reform of the Family law for non Muslims. That was when I get to see the great work that Dato PG Lim was doing, though I believe my old friend Ms Chew Swee Yoke will speak on that. I am also proud to have walked the same corridors that Dato PG Lim would have walked at the United Nations when I was the Assistant Secretary General for Human Resource Management of the United Nations. Dato, you really inspired me.

Professor Dr. Halimaton’s recognition by the Merdeka Award Committee is really boost for the empowerment of women of Malaysia. Professor Halimaton represents the present and the future of the women of Malaysia. Being an academician she naturally mentors and empowers her colleagues, and her students. I hope Prof’s success and the publicity given to her work will drive further the development of science and encourage and inspire others, especially girls into the world of science.