About MENDAKI Club
MENDAKI Club, or MClub, is a community of Malay/Muslim young professionals and students who are engaged in affairs concerning the community, Singapore and the world. We engage in strategic youth development initiatives and participate actively in discussions on current developments in the local and global arena. We also strive to build bridges within the Malay/Muslim community, and between our community and other communities, to promote mutual understanding and cooperation.
MClub was launched in 2000 by then-DPM Lee Hsien Loong and constantly seeks new and interested individuals to be part of its community. As a registered society and affiliated to the Malay/Muslim Self-Help Group Yayasan Mendaki, the activities and programmes of MClub are largely organised and run by volunteers from a wide range of professions and backgrounds.
The Committee
Nurbiah Daud
One word to describe Nurbiah? Gregarious!
Living her life with the quote by W. Clement Stone: "Be careful the Environment you choose for it will shape you. Be careful the Friends you choose for you will become them", she knows she has made the right step, literally, volunteering for a Mendaki event in 2005.
Nurbiah was awarded Outstanding Volunteer Award during Mendaki Appreciation Tea in 2009, and also Long Service Award during Mendaki Appreciation Tea 2011, and she treasures the honors given.
Freshly minted Executive Member (ExCo) in MENDAKI Club (MClub) and three terms running as a Core Member of Mentors Support Group in Yayasan Mendaki, she shudders at the added responsibilities and wonders how she will juggle the different hats i.e. as a Daughter to the Corporate Lady to the Volunteer and social dates in between? :P
But with the support of a great team (volunteers AND staff), she has full faith that Graduates’ Tea 2011 (GT’11) will meet its objectives which ultimately is to benefit the Malay/ Muslim Graduates.
Hanisah Mohd Yusof
An understanding girl and a deep thinker for solutions who loves cycling and travelling to distress herself and enjoys cooking and crocheting. She believes the shortest distance between a problem & its solution is the distance between your knees & the floor. The one who kneels to Him can stand up to anything.
As you grow you will learn and experience new things in life. When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile.
- Unknown
Nadiah Bte Zahairi
In what seemed as a simple "tagging along" session with her good friend to a MCLUB subcomm meeting, Nadiah soon found herself joining in as a member of the Graduates Tea organizing committee.
Just recently graduated from National University of Singapore (NUS) back then, she thought it could not have been a better time to join the organizing committee. As a fresh graduate herself, she played a pivotal role in the team by giving her own insights and opinions as to what a graduate would hope to gain from the event.
The best thing about being an MCLUB volunteer? She was thankful to be given a chance to work with amazing people on the team and best of all; she made new friends who turned out to be her closest friends whom she hangs out with frequently. She had everyone to thank for, for making each of her time volunteering at MClub fun and enjoyable.
Nadiah is currently a Consultant (Analytics) at a analytical software company, SPSS. Apart from volunteering at Mendaki, she volunteers her time as a member of a youth club at the community centre near where she stays.
Lina Soho
One of the very few female local seafarer who travelled across the meridian & equator since 1999 who also aspire to become a ship captain is back on land. 'Dropping her anchor' temporary to pursue master degree in the local university gives her an opportunity to join MClub since March 2011. Last sailed as the second ranking below the Master, she is currently ashore working on offshore projects for specialist vessels.
Lina Soho is a new member in MClub, committee member of GT’11 and would be keen to share her life journey to motivate young people & make them believe that 'dream can come true'. Being a graduate of Bachelor Of Maritime Operation with Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden in Netherlands, she believes that working experience is as important as paper qualification to survive in corporate world.
Lina enjoys a quiet alfresco brunch on her free days & love trying out new recipies in her own kitchen. She believes in making delicious food & desserts in a way of expression love for her loved ones!
Zulhafni Bin Haji Zulkeflee
Zulhafni is currently waiting to commence his studies at NUS to read Law. Fresh from the army, he jumped straight into volunteering with MClub by joining the Young Minds’ Club (YMC) as a facilitator and was subsequently roped into the Organising Committee for GT'11.
Probably one of the few in the Committee who can declare himself part of “the younger generation” with confidence, he spends his immense free time by volunteering at the grassroots level, actively participating as member of Anchorvale Toastmasters Club and hoping to prepare himself for law school by reading and interning.
As part of the Publicity Committee, he hopes this year’s Graduates’ Tea will be a fruitful and effective session for the graduates and looks forward to the time when he himself can benefit from the Graduates’ Tea in the near future!
Rita
Rita recently completed her Bachelor’s Degree from Monash University, with an Accounting major in Business and Commerce. She is the youngest of three sisters, and together, they are working on a family collection of recipes in tribute of their late mother. The book, "a Mother’s Heartfelt Recipes by Rita Zahara and sisters" is one in a series of five cookbooks that seeks to preserve the cultural and culinary heritage of the different ethnic groups in Singapore. The Singapore Heritage Cookbook series supported by the National Heritage Board is to be published by Marshall Cavendish by mid-2011.
Her current endeavour is the perfect marriage of her love for numbers and community development. Guided by the sacrosanct values she holds dear, she is inspired to take small steps in making a difference. She is currently a volunteer mentor for Yayasan Mendaki's Youth-in-Action (YIA) Programme and Aspire & Achieve through Mentorship (AAM) programme for Madrasah Aljunied. Having lost her mother to kidney failure, she also devotes her time to Muslim Kidney Action Association (MKAC).
Nur Azeemah
Nur Azeemah, a fresh Temasek Polytechnic (TP) graduate waiting to start university in August, is currently employed in Temasek Polytechnic’s new kindergarten, PLAY@TP. Her enthusiasm to work with children began in Temasek Polytechnic where she was exposed to Child Psychology related modules and was eventually sent on an internship where she conducted therapy on children with autism.
As a self-proclaimed geek, Azeemah loves reading and anything to do with the discovery of new knowledge. When she’s not bothering her friends with incessant questions about the world, Azeemah spends her free time reading books about anything under the sun; from Islamic related materials to corny love novels. Azeemah also spends a lot of time surfing the internet and is also embarrassingly addicted to Twitter.
Hana Shariff
Hana Shariff is a third year student in Temasek Polytechnic (TP) doing a Diploma in Psychology Studies. She is an outgoing girl who enjoys shopping, the outdoors and scrapbooking.
Other than her commitment to her studies, Hana possessed a burning passion for the arts, especially for her drama club “Teatro-Dramatec” in TP. The former President of the club spends most of her free time sharpening her theatrical skills, and coaching her juniors. Her latest theatre project was last December called "Magus Luna V" where Hana took the role of the director, scriptwriter and co-actor.
To her the theatre is the most comfortable and safest place for her to express her feelings. Her goal in theatre is to get more youths in Singapore to have an interest in the theatre and also to show others how to use the arts as a form of expression.
Eman Lim
This semi-retired adventure racer graduated with distinction for RMIT University’s School of Applied Communications where he started learning to be a publisher and almost ended up graduating as a lawyer, thankfully he was already happy enough developing real estate and philanthropic projects to leave well enough alone, so the world was spared from having to put up with another reptilian commercial litigator.
Since he was first co-opted into MENDAKI Club (MClub) as an optimistic student turned reluctant soldier just over a decade ago at Graduates' Tea 2000, when he started out being involved in the club's social cohesion activities, he has since gone on to become a less reluctant leader focusing his energies on youth development and education initiatives with the life goal of making life better for the Malay community by helping our youths become more confident and capable contributors to society.
When he is not involved in MClub's Young Minds' Club, Talent Development Programme or Collegiate Network projects, or bantering with old geezers on various corporate boards in his day job as a professional director, he spends his time on entrepreneurial, intellectual, artistic and athletic pursuits like google-ing, doodling, sculpting, and panting and wheezing cross country.
Fazlina
Fazlina devotes much of her time putting her comprehension skills to the test as a rising fourth year law student in Singapore Management University. Fueled by her passion for social issues, she mentors youths on the brink of success with Yayasan Mendaki's YIA Programme and has found mentoring to be an enriching experience thus far. Fazlina loves living life voraciously and keeps herself busy with her many varied interests which soaking up the sun outdoors, reading good crime thriller novels and paper-crafting. A perfectionist by nature, she serves on the logistics team for GT'11.
