Madam Joyce Lye Geok Choo is the co-founder of Kampung Senang Charity and Education Foundation (“Kampung Senang”).  She graduated from the University of Singapore with an Honours degree in Chemistry.  After a short stint in the civil service, Joyce carved a highly successful career as a banker for 23 years before transforming to pursue her passion.

Her volunteer activities with the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation and her subsequent acquaintances with Dr Lai Chiu Nan and Dr Jiang Shu Hui, both holistic health practitioners, inspired Joyce to find her true calling in life. Together with her husband, James Low, they established Kampung Senang in 1999 with ten like-minded friends, to promote organic and holistic living. The name “Kampung Senang” had its beginning in Joyce’s childhood which was spent in a kampung with her Chinese physician father. The caring and warm spirit of the old kampung days was what she hopes to revive.

As the Co-founder of Kampung Senang, Joyce has successfully led the organization in the last ten years. It now has  five centers, providing education and health care services / activities benefiting the poor, the young, the elderly, the sick and the infirm, particularly cancer stricken persons, and promoting environmental protection.

Joyce was a recipient of the 2005 Singapore Rotary Club’s “Good Samaritan” award. She and Kampung Senang were also the subject of numerous newspaper feature articles, and media programmes, both on television and over the radio.

The following is a citation by Rotary Club of Singapore:

Joyce Lye Geok Choo - Winner of "Good Samaritan" Award 2005.

As a child she was adopted by a chinese physician because her parents were not well-off. She managed to obtain a degree in Chemistry at the University, paying her own way through much of it.

Upon graduation, she joined the National Productivity Board, thereafter becoming a banker for some 23 years, ending her career on a very high note - she became the General Manager of Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Capital. She had just the right ‘chemistry’ for it.

Then she did an amazing thing - quite mind-boggling, really. She gave up her $20,000 job to become a volunteer. Joyce could not turn down the call inside her to repay what she had received from the community and to help those in need.

In 1999 she started the Kampung Senang Charity and Education Foundation. Its motto says it all:"Care for the Environment, Care for the People". Her vision was to get that old kampung spirit back on track - in the face of all the modern-day aberrations: the spirit of ‘senang’ - a Malay word for ‘wellness’ - a sense of peace and harmony.

The organization she initiated, today conducts multi-faceted welfare activities benefiting the poor, the elderly, children, the sick and the infirm, particularly cancer-stricken persons. The range includes gifts of food, learning and elderly care centres, a holistic day care for students, free medical care, an organic farm, a delivery service to the sick and the poor, a neighhourhood recycling programme, and encouraging youth to volunteer - all aimed at helping and caring for others.

Madam Lye is a personification of utter dedication and sheer commitment, driven by her own dreams of self-sacrifice and translating them into a community service that is perhaps second to none.