SINDA Connections - Dec 2014

01

CEO’s Note

Dear friends of SINDA,

Mr Kumaran Barathan CEO, SINDA

It feels like only yesterday that I stepped into SINDA, and five months have already passed!

These past months have certainly been eventful.

With the support of all staff, we have streamlined the organisation along the themes that SINDA holds close to its heart: education, youth, family and community partnership. I am confident that SINDA staff are primed to offer the community more benefits: better programmes, more efficient services and quicker response times, among many others.

We have also been occupied with charting our direction to better meet the needs of the community. We have doubled the current number of bursaries for Indian students to 2,000 including those we award jointly with the Singapore Indian Education Trust (SIET) for students pursuing their post-secondary education in the polytechnics or the Institute of Technical Education. We increased the ‘per capita income’ criteria for SINDA programmes, so that more pre-schoolers, students and families can benefit from our programmes and services.

Continuing our focus on education, we have taken a hard look at some of our academic programmes.

Our goal is to complement our students’ academic pursuits and prepare them for the future, especially in a challenging educational landscape. Next year, we will have more impactful and customised curricula to meet the needs of differentiated learners in our tuition programmes, as well as better tutors and enrichment programmes for an enhanced overall experience with SINDA. Our efforts are not focused on academics alone.

Well aware of the importance of a well-rounded education, we have tailored age-specific youth programmes that will better meet the needs of today’s youth. These include a good mix of programmes that will groom students who are already well on the path to success as well as intervention services that will lend a helping hand to students who have yet to gain a proper foothold.

I have faith that these programmes will ensure that our Indian students grow up to become confident and capable adults.

For adults, we are focused on nurturing optimal parents to be integral units of a cohesive family.

We understand how parenting styles influence a child, and we want Indian parents to have the necessary tools to effectively raise their children.

Our various financial schemes and modular parenting workshops will work towards this goal.

All of this is made possible by your contributions to the SINDA Fund. Many of you would have

heard that come 2015, SINDA will be increasing the monthly contribution rates, after almost 18 years.

We conducted several focus group feedback sessions and held a Community Forum this year to consult stakeholder groups and community leaders on this matter. We are heartened by your endorsement and encouragement to proceed.

The change primarily affects those earning more than $4,500 per month. However, those earning below $1,000 will be contributing a lower rate of $1 as opposed to the current $3. This stems from our belief that every individual should be able to give what he or she can, towards helping the community.

It is also in this very spirit that we have increased contribution rates for the high-income earners — we are confident that such individuals will support our cause wholeheartedly. The revised rates are published in this issue.

At the end of the day, SINDA cannot achieve its mission on its own — you as a community, fuel and drive it. Your contribution goes towards helping students academically or lending support to a family in their time of need. Your support allows us as a community, to move forward, together.

On this note, with the year coming to a close, I wish you happy holidays and a fruitful and blessed 2015.