Ms Gauri Prakash Savadi bags the High Performing Singapore Police Officer Award

Ms Gauri Prakash Savadi, an Indian ex-pat who settled in Singapore is a naturalized citizen now and originally hailing from Hubballi has made the state of Karnataka proud by bagging the prestigious High Performing Singapore Police Officer Award. The award has been bestowed for her accomplishments on the eve of the bicentennial celebrations of the Singapore Police Day Parade, Commemoration Day.

However, Ms Gauri Prakash Savadi is not much elated over the feat and makes no qualms in admitting that her role as a voluntary police officer is just another one along with several other voluntary initiatives. “It is just giving back to the society which we owe very much. I believe in contributing and inspiring”, she tells.

Ms Gauri Prakash Savadi

She asserts, “My way of looking at it is keeping contributing wherever you are. Anyone of the age of 16 is capable physically, mentally and emotionally. Let’s all make a beginning, maybe let it start from picking up the garbage”.

She has been with the Singapore Police as a volunteer officer for the past eight and half years. As of now, she is officiating in the Sergeant-2 category. “There are many police divisions across the country while I have been functioning from the specialized police division with the airport. It is needless to say, for being with the police you also need to be away from the family apart from being on the night shifts as well”, says Gauri Prakash Savadi.

“Thanks to a huge populace of people of Indian origin in Singapore it is very easy to blend in and connected with the local citizens. Due to the country’s small geographical mapping, in a way, it’s easy to get around and that’s how we’re privileged to function”, claims Gauri Prakash Savadi.

One of her recent assignments was of providing security to the distinguished gathering from overseas to a Defense event. “There were representatives of 38 countries participating in the conclave, including the Ukrainian President. I was also deployed as part of the Special Force constituted to provide security to the country heads”, she recalls.

In fact, Gauri Prakash Savadi has been associated with 10 other organizations as well within a span of 24 and half years of her stay in Singapore under the scope of a volunteer. Probably, her longest stint professionally was with the National Trade Union Corporation (NTUC) for 18 years. In NTUC, she was associated as a Director for Pre-school centres overseeing a staff of 100+ personnel, parents and children.

Perhaps, she is a multifaceted personality with a variety of activities all along. Gauri Prakash Savadi is also a well-known mountaineer conquering the peaks of South Asia and having scaled the African snow-clad Mt. Kili Manjaro.

She has been travelling a lot since childhood as her father Basavaraj Kallur served in the Central Police Reserve Force (CRPF) and was involved in any number of operations against insurgency in the North, North East and the country’s borders.

In a real sense, voluntary policing is just one of the several passions she is involved with. For, she is associated with the activities of an orphanage in Indonesia. As an activist of the Red Cross, she holds blood donation camps, once in four months. After the entry of the Covid-19 pandemic the Red Cross, for time being is not deputing its volunteers for relief and rehabilitation operations outside the country.

She is in the National Boating Team and is actively involved in wildlife conservation. The Singapore-based wildlife organization is known for its research activities and rescuing wildlife like pythons, cobras and birds.

She is also invoked with the Indian Women’s Association Singapore and has been the membership chair as well as the Kindness club chair. She is a solo traveller visiting many countries for service-oriented work, and climbing peaks. She rides a bike as well and has been featured on a calendar and does some ad hoc modelling as well.

Before signing off, Gauri Prakash Savadi said. “More than the above I believe we need to tweak to showcase to people especially women of our generation that possibilities are endless. Life is about growth where we all must live to our full potential. Be it a new recipe, be it a new skill-grow in any direction and any manner possible. With the blessings of the elderly and all around us, we individuals must look ahead. I am very thankful to my parents, my husband and more so to my two now-adult children who have provided the space to me to be able to expand my capacities and in doing so they have grown as well”.

-Manohar Yadavatti