Minister Indranee Rajah at the Mendaki Symposium 2025

Mr Zaqy Mohamad, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Sustainability and Environment & Ministry of Defence and Chairman of Yayasan MENDAKI
Mdm Zuraidah Abdullah, CEO of Yayasan MENDAKI
My parliamentary colleague, Acting Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Associate Professor Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my great pleasure to join all of you at this year’s MENDAKI Symposium.

Background of Symposium and 2025’s Theme

This event has been organised annually since 2017 to facilitate the exchange of ideas and research among different community stakeholders of all ages and backgrounds, such as academics, practitioners, professionals, and members of the public.

This year, the Symposium’s theme is “Catalysts for Change: Mobilising Communities, Empowering Futures”, with a focus on the development of children and youths.

With this in mind, I want to speak about two important pillars of support in fostering positive youth development, namely families and the wider community.

Families: Empowering Youths Starts From Home

In my Parliamentary Motion on Supporting Singaporeans in Starting and Raising Families earlier this year, I had emphasised the importance of supporting families as a top national priority.

Families are the building blocks of our society. They form the first line of support in difficult times. They are also a key foundation of our social compact, and they are the ones that most influence the child in the early years of child development and throughout the teenage years and beyond.

In the same vein, families are a cornerstone in ensuring the positive development of our children and youth.

It is heartening to see MENDAKI’s continued focus on empowering families through your education and outreach efforts.

Through its KelasMateMatika programme or KMM for example, MENDAKI conducts workshops and activities for families with preschool children aged between four to six years old.

At KMM, parents also go through curated sessions which provide them with the skills to teach their children basic numeracy concepts.

Since 2021, KMM has benefited over 11,000 parents and children.

Based on MENDAKI’s evaluation of the programme in 2023, nine in ten children who undergo KMM did not require the additional Learning Support in Mathematics or LSM programme when they entered Primary One, up from eight in ten children the year before.

LSM is a specialised early intervention programme rolled out at MOE primary schools for Primary One to Four students who need additional help with Mathematics.

Let me share with you the story of Mdm Suhartati Saimun. In 2023, Mdm Suhartati took part in KMM sessions with two of her children, Tengku Maryam and Tengku Uthman. After completing the programme, Mdm Suhartati could see an improvement in her children’s learning skills and confidence level. KMM has helped her daughter, Maryam, to be school ready in 2024 as she entered Primary 1.

Thanks to KMM, parents like Mdm Suhartati gained confidence not only in their child’s numeracy abilities but also in their own ability to better support their children’s educational journey.

Before going through KMM, about 70% of parents felt they were confident in teaching their children numeracy skills. This figure jumped to 95% after undergoing the programme.

KMM’s results validate two important points: that upstream intervention produces positive results, and that supporting parents and families leads to good outcomes for children.

Programmes such as these complement the Government’s support to families in raising and supporting their children – from birth to their early years, and youths as they progress through school.

Education opens doors – not just for individuals, but for families as a whole. This is why we must make sure that every child in Singapore can access quality education, regardless of their background or their starting point.

Today, education in our national school system and Institutes of Higher Learning is highly subsidised. Every Singaporean child receives over $200,000 in education subsidies from pre-school through to secondary school.

Students from lower to middle-income families are also able to access various financial assistance schemes offered by the Government, schools and institutions.

But education goes beyond textbooks and classrooms. At home, our children learn the values that shape who they become – resilience from watching their parents overcome challenges, compassion through acts of kindness, and the confidence that comes from having a strong support system.

A strong family foundation can help nurture our children and youths to fulfil their potential.

Community: It Takes a Village to Raise a Child

Next, the community. The broader community also plays a part in supporting our children’s development.

As the old saying goes, “it takes a village to raise a child”. A recent quantitative finding from a study on Positive Youth Development conducted by MENDAKI and the Singapore University of Social Sciences confirms this.

A survey of over 600 secondary school students from the MENDAKI Tuition Programme found that while parents played a more significant role in youths’ development up till 14 years of age due to the need for clear roles and encouragement from parents, the community and other adult role models played an even larger part in their development from 15 years old and beyond as they begin to seek validation and support from others.

These findings highlight the complementary roles the family and the community play in raising our youth. I understand that more insights from this study will be presented later.

As Singapore’s pioneer self-help group, MENDAKI has played a pivotal role in ensuring the progress of the Malay/Muslim community for over four decades.

In recent years, MENDAKI has stepped up its efforts in partnering community stakeholders, volunteers, and professionals to support youth development through comprehensive programmes.

One example is the #amPowered initiative, which helps youths identify their strengths and set meaningful goals through mentorship programmes and sessions. This programme also exposes youths to various professions to help them make more informed decisions for their future careers.

From 2021 to 2024, MENDAKI’s Youth Mentoring Office and its partners trained and deployed close to 1,900 mentors to support more than 7,900 youths.

Another example is the “Future of…” series which MENDAKI organises to allow youths to engage directly with industry experts to gain valuable insights into evolving market trends and the essential skills required to thrive in today’s labour market.

This is very meaningful work, and I encourage everyone to consider contributing your time and efforts to MENDAKI’s programmes to help uplift our next generation. For those who are already doing so, a big thank you.

Conclusion

Families and the wider community are fundamental building blocks that our children rely on as they grow and mature. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that these building blocks remain strong and sturdy, to help the next generation become the best versions of themselves.

I hope that today’s event will provide you with some insights on opportunities to collaborate with MENDAKI and like-minded organisations, and to inspire you to do so, in support of these meaningful causes.

Thank you very much and have a good day ahead.

Explore related topics

• Education

• Families and communities