Rationale

Despite Singapore’s sustained economic expansion and the gradually increasing average monthly household income from work of Singaporeans, a Department of Statistics report has noted that the income gap between the high and low income groups in Singapore continues to widen.

If left untreated, the widening income gap is a problem that will threaten Singapore’s social stability in the long run.
In fact, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong even made it the focus of his speech to the Malay community (which constitutes the larger percentage of low income families in Singapore) during the 2006 National Day Rally.

Without a good education, it is difficult for Singaporeans from the low-income group to improve their economic status, climb the social ladder and keep up with the overall national progress. Unfortunately, children from many low income families in Singapore are often negatively affected by problems in their families, such as the lack of parents’ interest in their child’s education as they had also been brought up by parents who do not see the importance of education, or the frequent family conflicts caused by their limited household income.

As a result, many of these children often under-perform in school as they do not see fun and meaning in learning, and rarely pursue tertiary education.

Recognizing the fact that the above problems have often been overlooked by community projects, our service aims to instill fun and meaning into the learning of these underprivileged children from the low income families and help develop in them a spirit of life-long independent learning, so as to better aid them in succeeding academically and in life, thus liberating them from the vicious poverty cycle and greatly narrowing the income gap in Singapore in the long run. This will contribute significantly to the long-term economic and social stability of Singapore.