President's Message
Welcome on board!
Dear Members,
I was first introduced to Mendaki Club (MClub) in 2005. I had just completed my National Service, was a greenhorn officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was persuaded by my friend Iva Aminuddin, whom I had known since my Junior College days, to start volunteering for a new programme called the "Young Minds Club". Another friend, Esa Masood, joined us and a team from Yayasan Mendaki's Volunteer Relations Unit to design a programme that we hoped would help young and able Malay/Muslim students in our top secondary schools to enrich their academic and extra-curricular experiences.
Several of us involved in the programme had a gut instinct that an occasional shot in the arm would be good for such students' self-esteem. We designed our programmes accordingly - with lots of hands-on experiences, group discussions and presentations by students to their peers that we hoped would enhance their self-confidence.
The Young Minds Club, or YMC as it is affectionately known, is now in its 5th year and has come full circle. The first batch of students has progressed to Junior College and even started a YMC Alumni Club to sustain their connections with the programme.
MClub also organises a host of other activities to build on the foundations laid by YMC - a Talent Development Programme for JC/Poly students, which began as a mentoring programme in 2003; a Collegiate Symposium and other outreach activities to undergraduates and students at institutes of higher learning; as well as monthly "Conversations" between young professionals and expert speakers on a range of current issues.
The core of our activities has remained. We are still interested in enhancing the self-confidence of young Malay/Muslims, as they go about navigating a world that is increasingly more complex and turbulent. On top of pressing issues like how we carve out a meaningful and constructive identity for ourselves in the broader Singaporean tapestry, we also have to wrestle with the reality of how we define our destinies amid the upsides and costs of globalisation, paradigm shifts in technology and an ever-evolving geopolitical environment.
All these make for challenging but also exciting times. As our different programmes grow, MClub is also coming full circle and celebrates its 10th anniversary next year.
For members out there who would like to reconnect with us , we invite you to get back in touch - either with me or any of the Exco Members listed at our website. We would love to hear about what you're doing now and if you have any ideas on how the Club can do things better.
For our members-to-be, we look forward to welcoming you to the Club, and encourage you to sign up for membership via our website. Given the diversity of our programmes, we're always in need of a whole spectrum of volunteers - discussion facilitators, speakers who can share career and/or technical experiences, programme and events managers, and more. The core of it all is really whether you get a natural high from working with young people, and from contributing to the self-confidence of our community. If you would like to get in touch with any of us, the Exco and I would be more than happy to respond to any queries you may have.
I hope to see you at one of our activities soon,
Aaron
President
Mendaki Club Executive Committee 09/11