SELF-HELP GROUPS (Benchmarks)

Mr Gerard Ee asked the Minister for Community Development (a) whether there is a need to assist self-help groups to set benchmarks and to increase their effectiveness in dealing with social issues; (b) how effective they have been in helping to deal with juvenile problems; and (c) what are the statistics of juveniles being admitted to institutions.

The Minister for Community Development (Mr Abdullah Tarmugi): Sir, the self-help groups have their own goals which they set for themselves, and these goals serve as benchmarks for improvements. This is because each self-help group will know what is required for their own community, and they know what is realistic.

Mendaki, for example, measures the impact of its contribution against the academic performance of Malay students at PSLE and 'O' level examinations. The CDAC has committees involving independent researchers, some of whom are from the universities, and they regularly review each programme to ensure that they serve the needs of the target groups.

As for juvenile problems, they are complex and there are various causes. Self-help groups cannot address these problems on their own. Together with various VWOs and Ministries, these self-help groups tackle the problems with programmes which can reach out to both the parents and guardians of these juveniles. Mendaki, for example, has a Youth Development Programme which serves both the students in schools and school leavers. The CDAC has tuition programmes which also aim to involve and interest the family in the student's progress. And by addressing the educational needs of these less advantaged members of the communities and also concentrating on the training of the workers, the self-help groups intervene at the level where intervention can have the earliest and greatest impact, ie, upstream.

As for the number of juveniles being admitted to institutions, the Singapore Boys' Home and Toa Payoh Girls' Home have an average of 220 admissions per year, from 1997 to 1999. These numbers have remained fairly constant over the years. The number of admissions of juvenile delinquents and those beyond parental control (BPC cases) to the juvenile institutions run by the voluntary welfare organisations has, in fact, decreased from 170 in 1997 to 97 in 1999. These institutions include Gracehaven, Pertapis Centre for Women and Girls, Muhammadiyah Welfare Home and Pertapis Children's Home.

Mr Gerard Ee: Sir, the self-help groups were originally set up to assist the youths who were having problems with their studies. What is the scope of expanding the self-help groups into umbrella bodies to reach out further into the communities?

Mr Abdullah Tarmugi: Sir, indeed, they have been doing these programmes incrementally. Mendaki, for example, has gone into the FSC business, as it were, together with some other institutional members. So far, I think they have opened two family service centres. In other words, they do go into these areas too. As I have said, the main concern for Mendaki, the CDAC and for the rest of the self-help groups is the educational performance of the communities. And they hope to improve the respective communities by addressing the problems upstream.