Rasammah was one of the earliest women involved in the fight for Malaysian (then Malaya) independence. She joined the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, the women's wing of the Indian National Army, to fight the British. She served in Burma during World War II.
Educator, unionist and activist, Rasammah has spent a lifetime fighting for a better society. After graduating from University of Malaya in Singapore in 1955, she became a teacher at the Methodist Girls School in Penang. This led her to notice that women teachers were discriminated against in terms of salary.
She was founder president of the Women Teachers Union of the Federation of Malaya in 1960.
Rasammah was the first honorary secretary general of the Malayan Teachers National Congress, which is affiliated to the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession (WCOTP). She was the founder principal of the Methodist College and in 1983, she received the Tokoh Guru award in 1986.
She is also a founder member of the National Council of Women’s Organisations (NCWO), and was its first secretary general.
Currently, she is chairperson of the National Council of Women’s Organisations’ Law and Human Rights Commission, finance chairperson of YWCA-KL and sits on the Methodist Education Foundation board.
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