Boost for fund supporting new non-profits that help school dropouts, the vulnerable

In Secondary 3, Ms Nur Syafizan Mohamed Rasid dropped out of school owing to anxiety, depression and a sense of hopelessness.

After spending several months at home, she began free tuition classes with non-profit group Starfish Singapore to prepare for the N levels as a private candidate.

One of four children raised by a single mother working as a canteen stall assistant, Ms Syafizan, now 23, said: "Starfish gave me the only hope to fix my life and succeed."

Starfish is a grantee of the Temasek Foundation New Horizon Fund.

Philanthropic organisation The Majurity Trust started the fund in 2021 to support new non-profit or ground-up groups with three-year seed funding of up to $150,000 each.

Temasek Foundation, the philanthropic arm of investment company Temasek, is the fund's latest anchor partner.

In late March, Temasek Foundation announced it was committing $1.1 million over five years to the Temasek Foundation New Horizon Fund and the Oscar Mentoring Programme.

This is to expand efforts to start, grow and scale the ground-up movement in Singapore.

The Oscar Mentoring Programme is a partnership between Temasek Foundation and social enterprise Empact, where leaders of ground-up groups are matched with mentors from various sectors to receive guidance on growing their organisations.

The Majurity Trust's senior director of philanthropy Charles Tan said the fund was launched to support new ground-up groups or non-profits as such new outfits find it hard to attract donors even though they play a crucial role in meeting emerging or unmet needs.

The fund was earlier known as the Lam Soon New Horizon Fund, which was named after its previous anchor donor, the TL Whang Foundation, which gave it $1 million.

TL Whang Foundation is the registered charity of Lam Soon Group, which is known for its consumer goods such as the Knife brand cooking oil.

Nine groups have already received funding from the Lam Soon New Horizon Fund.

These include Impart, Happee Hearts Movement and KampungKakis, which matches volunteers with isolated seniors who live near them for befriending support.

Impart helps at-risk youth, while Happee Hearts Movement provides health services to adults with intellectual disabilities and their caregivers.

BapaHebat SG is another recipient of the Lam Soon New Horizon Fund. The non-profit group, whose name means "awesome dad" in Malay, was set up in 2021 and runs a range of programmes for fathers.

Its co-founder Jamsari Ahmad, an information technology professional, said a large part of its work involves helping fathers in jail bond with their children.

For example, it runs a 12-session programme for incarcerated fathers to help them communicate with their children and repair their relationships, which are often strained as many of these fathers are not physically or emotionally there for them, Mr Jamsari said.

The group also runs father-child bonding activities and "teh tarik with dads" sessions where fathers gather to share their experiences and support one another, among other things.

Mr Jamsari said it is a secular group which works with fathers from all races and religions, although it has programmes that are designed specifically for Malay-Muslim dads.

He said BapaHebat received $150,000 over three years from the fund, and the money played an instrumental role in allowing it to pilot new programmes and pay for operational costs.

The group is currently run by volunteers, and it does not have any full-time staff yet, Mr Jamsari said.

He added: "It is very difficult to get funding as we are an unknown entity, and donors are more interested to give to the youth, elderly and educational causes."

Besides giving monetary support, The Majurity Trust has also helped the group such as by linking them to mentors and networking opportunities, and capability-building workshops, Mr Jamsari said.

The Majurity Trust's Mr Tan said the latest partnership with Temasek Foundation will enable the fund to support more groups and help new grantees boost their capabilities, such as through a mentoring programme.

For example, Starfish's partnerships and communications manager Vickland Kaamela Barvin said the fund enabled the group to hire its first two full-time staff and pay for other operational expenses. The group used to be run entirely by volunteers, who still include tutors.

Two former colleagues at a private school, Ms Siti Yariyati and Ms Ritu Machanda, and research fellow Andrew Schauf started Project Starfish in 2015 as they realised that many school dropouts could not afford the fees at private schools that prepare them to take the national examinations as private candidates.

Many of these dropouts were from the Normal stream. So Project Starfish - now Starfish Singapore - started a nine-month-long free tuition programme to prepare these young people to take the N levels.

Ms Vickland said many of the young people they teach drop out of school at the age of 14 or 15 and, without an N-level certificate, many take on gig jobs, for example, as delivery riders, or join the food and beverage sector.

She said: "There's a perception that absenteeism (from school) equates to naughtiness and laziness. To some extent, this is understandable, but such labelling affects their sense of self, and the reasons why they drop out are multifaceted.

"They have family issues, mental health struggles and some get involved in criminal activities. But many of them have bigger dreams for themselves, and they want to pursue further education."

Ms Syafizan attended classes at Starfish one day a week for English language, mathematics and science for about nine months, while she held a job at McDonald's.

She eventually passed her N levels and later completed a Nitec course in electronics, computer networking and communications at the Institute of Technical Education.

She is now pursuing a diploma in audio production at her "dream school", Lasalle College of the Arts.

"Everyone at Starfish is so kind and caring, and they care about every single young person who comes through the programme," she said. "I would never have got to where I am now without Starfish."