SINGAPORE’’S Sikhs have decided to combat a host of problems facing their community, including falling school performances, drug addiction, the absence of top sportsmen and a lack of opportunities to meet prolate of opportunities to meet prospective marriage partners.

A 15-member resource panel has been set up by the Sikh Advisory Board to examine what needs to be done in areas like youth, education, culture, sports and research.

There are also plans to get the 15,000 Sikhs here to contribute to a voluntary common fund to help finance community projects.

Speaking at the launching of the resource panel recently, board chairman Bhajan Singh highlighted some problems that had surfaced in the past decade:

POORER school performances. There were a high number of Sikh students in the five-year normal stream in secondary schools, suggesting that education performances had dropped.

AN INCREASING number of Sikhs drug addicts and prisoners, and not enough rehabilitation programs.

THE lack of a systematic process for Sikh youngsters to socialize and learn about their culture,

THE drop in the number of Sikhs who participate and excel in sports, Mr. Bhajan Singh, who is the principal of Si Ling Secondary School, said that early last year, several members of the advisory board and Sikh professionals got together to discuss the problems in the community, and decided to form a resource panel.

Panel members, who include doctors, teachers, executives, a lawyer and a senior police officer, have organized themselves into five committees.

The youth, education and guidance committee will look into education problems, provide career guidance and counsel Sikh youths with emotional and social problems.

The rehabilitation committee will look at ways to help drug addicts and prisoners, and also look into the needs of the elderly.

The cultural and social activities committee will plan ways to teach Sikh children their culture, and also help marriageable young Sikhs to meet.

The sports committee will aim at producing more top Sikh sportsmen, while a research and publications committee hopes to examine the community’s problems in-depth and produce a newsletter.

Said Mr. Bhajan Singh: “Ours is a small and cohesive community and we are optimistic we can solve our problems.”

Among the 300 people who attended yesterday’s function at the Regional Language Centre in

‘Orange Grove Road was Mr. Davinder Singh, a Member of Parliament for Toa Payoh GRC,

He noted that some Sikh youths found it difficult to cope with pressures in school and turned to undesirable activities, while others found it difficult to relate the religious trends in other countries with the situation here.

He said Sikh youths must accept the reality of competition in school and practice moderation in their religion.

While parents had a role in guiding their children, they were limited by time and facilities. This was where the new resource panel could help, he said.

Community Development and Foreign Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng presented letters of appointment to the resource panel members.

Mr. Wong later praised the Sikh community’s self-help effort as something worth encouraging. The members of a community were in the best position to know about their own problems and to organize self-help projects, he added.

Later in the afternoon, the Advisory Board launched the first Singapore Sikh Lecture, with a talk on Sikhism by Professor Jaswant Singh Neki, a theologian and consultant psychiatrist from India.

Article extracted from this publication >> January 26, 1990