"My two passions are people and information. My objective was to start thinking of other people more than making a fee," he says. "I'll be pleased if I can help one person today."

Chairman of welfare organisation, Mother's Choice, now celebrating its 20th anniversary, he recalls how teamwork, initiative and goodwill enabled the charity to help single teenagers and their families deal with crisis pregnancies. With friends Gary and Helen Stephens, Marwah and wife Phyllis wanted to help young Hong Kong girls forced to have abortion at a late stage of pregnancy because they had no alternatives.

"A few of us decided we should do something about it," says Marwah. "I went to see an old friend of mine, who was by this time chief secretary of Hong Kong, Sir David Ford. I rang him up and said, "I've never asked for a favour in all the time weíve
known each other, but now I need one: a building for Mother's Choice."


Thus came into being the organisation, which was allowed use of a decrepit pre-war building on Bowen Road for HK$1 a year. "The government building had no plumbing or wiring, and a lot of the woodwork was rotten, but it contained six apartments and we were able to club together to clean it up," remembers Marwah.