Gangster's big wake-up call

TNP PHOTO: Gary Goh

He was a gang member by the time he was 13. Tim (not his real name) was also getting into fights, selling drugs and stealing vehicles. He hardly attended school and he was getting single-digit scores in his exams.

But things changed after he was sent to a Boys' Home. There, he was exposed to discipline and was told to stop contacting his former gangster friends.

Said Tim, now 18: “I listened because I figured that they were the reason I was inside in the first place.”

He also received help from a youth worker, who used techniques from a new field called restorative practices, to help him turn his life around and go back to school.