Singapore Tamil Youth Conference 2016 Manifesto NUSTLS Singapore Tamil Youth Conference 2016 Manif | Page 78

Issue 13: Community Work for Tamils by Tamils Author: Ms. A. Aarthi BACKGROUND: Needs of the Singapore Tamil community Leadership Education • Ensuring each child • More youths to take charge of community achieves his academic needs. potential. • Greater integration of • Support in career choice different community and development. partners to more • Tuition and coaching effectively address programs. community needs Family • Improve parent-child relationships. • Parents need to play a more active role in their children’s lives. • Improve domestic environments to strengthen family ties. Cohesion • Reduce socio-economic gaps within the community. • Better understand the recent developments in terms of culture, language and religion. • Improve understanding between ‘local’ Tamils and newer Tamil migrants Introduction We need to consider and acknowledge the development of multiculturalism, the nature of migration, and state formation so as to accurately uncover the specific issues and gaps within a particular community. • In the case of the Tamil population, one of the longstanding issues is the perceived lack of cohesion. There are various perceived separations to account for this lack of cohesion. This write-up will choose to focus the relationship between the ‘local’ Tamil Singaporeans and the newer Tamil migrants. Community work in the past Community Work today • People may not have consciously engaged in ‘community work’ as it is • Primary focus is on targeting the known today. Our forefathers came from different backgrounds to underprivileged. It has been incorporated make a home out of a newly ‘immigrannation’. Community work was into school curriculums to increase thus carried out organically within and across the different ethnic awareness of the marginalised and to communities. create a strong sense of civic responsibility. • Played a key role in improving social cohesion amongst communit