For more than 20 years, Alvin Liew has been part of Habitat for Humanity Singapore’s story: first as a volunteer, then as a board member, and now as acting board chair and treasurer. What has kept him there is the conviction that a home can restore far more than shelter.
Alvin Liew’s Habitat story started in the aftermath of a disaster.
It was 2004. The Indian Ocean tsunami had just torn through the region, leaving families without homes, belongings, or any sense of what came next. Like many watching the devastation unfold, Alvin wanted to help. But writing a check and hoping it did some good wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to be there.
Habitat for Humanity gave him that chance. He traveled to Sri Lanka and Indonesia to help rebuild homes in two of the worst-hit areas.
“It was an in-person experience where you could see, touch and be part of the outcome,” he says. “That was very compelling to me.”
He wasn’t ready for how hard the physical work would be. He laughs about that now. But what has stuck with him was the experience of working side by side with the homeowner.
What the family could not afford in money, they gave in labor. They showed up with their own sweat, hours, whatever strength they had left, building the very house they would go on to live in.
Alvin had shown up thinking he was there to build a house. He left understanding that the work was much more than that.
“We were helping them recover, restoring a home and dignity for a family,” he says.