The person behind H Project.
Founder of H Project. Author of Dear Inmates.
Dr Roger Tan started H Project from a simple belief: That everyone deserves to be treated with kindness — including by themselves, and including the people society finds easiest to forget.
Every morning since 2022, Roger has written letters to prisoners — more than 35,000 so far. He does it so that inmates in prison who feel cut off from the world know that someone outside still remembers and includes them. That work became the heart of H Project: Not compassion as an idea, but compassion put into practice in real life.
He writes to them while living with terminal cancer, diagnosed in November 2024. The diagnosis did not stop the letters, and it did not stop the work. If anything, it made the point clearer: Kindness cannot wait for a better time and should be given freely to anyone suffering.
Today, H Project carries that same practical compassion to others — through self-compassion classes, and through charity work that helps ex-inmates prevent reoffending and find their place in the community again.
Background
- Author of Dear Inmates
- More than 35,000 letters written to prisoners
- The Straits Times Singaporean of the Year 2025 — finalist
- Doctorate of Business Administration (Honoris Causa)
- MSc Finance, Imperial College London
- MEng via Research, Nanyang Technological University
- BSc Computing and Information Systems (First Class Honours), Goldsmiths College
- Completing a BSc in Psychology, Singapore University of Social Sciences
As featured in CNA Insider →
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