Nurturing the next generation of young women leaders

Speech by Ms Grace Fu, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, Young Women in Leadership Dialogue 2017 at Funan Showsuite

Mr Khairul Anwar, President, MENDAKI Club

Ms Rahayu Mohd, President, PPIS        

Mdm Zulaiha Yusof, Chief Operating Officer, Yayasan MENDAKI

Ladies and gentlemen.

Introduction

1. A very good afternoon to all of you. It is my pleasure to join you at the second Young Women in Leadership Dialogue (YWILD). I am sure among you, some of you will be our future generation of women leaders.
   
   

   Equal opportunities for women to pursue their aspirations

2. Women have made much progress over the years in Singapore. We have come a long way from the days of being confined to just taking care of household responsibilities and raising families. I think most of us here probably are too young to know, but we have been tracking how women have progressed over the years. Just some trivia that in the 1960s, only 60% of girls were literate. That means that out of 10 of you, six will go to school and the other four will have to go home and probably look after your siblings or tend to farming, cleaning and so on. So indeed, I’m sure all of us are now given the equal opportunity in education. Fundamental to this is our continued commitment in building a fairer and more equal society.
3. Today, women have the same opportunities as men to pursue their aspirations, on the basis of meritocracy. Let me cite two specific areas where women are doing well 
   - In education, the Compulsory Education Act ensures that all Singaporean children have equal access to quality primary school education. And this is paying dividends, with women having a literacy rate above 95% as of 2016. Further upstream, women are well-represented in subjects traditionally viewed as male domains; For example, we have done in Law; we have also done well in architectural studies. You can see the proportion of females bridging the gap with males. in 2015, women made up 73% of health sciences graduates and close to 60% of natural, physical and mathematical science graduates. We have also made enhancements to women’s employment rights through the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 
   - Women are well represented in the workforce, with a national full-time employment rate for women aged 25-64 at 72% last year, which is fairly high even compared to some of the developed societies. There are also more women holding professional jobs – the proportion of female lawyers, state court judges, doctors have all increased over the past decade.
   
   

   Policies support women to have a family and a successful career

4. While such progress is heartening, women now have to manage the added demands that come with modernity and success. For example, we frequently find ourselves juggling multiple responsibilities and roles at work and at home. Some of us might find it difficult to strike a balance between seemingly competing priorities of getting a good career, starting a family and having a good family lives.
5. Our policies have been crafted to better support women in meeting these dual aspirations of career and family. We have initiatives such as the Work-Life Grant and the Tripartite Committee on Work-Life Strategy, to provide funding and incentives for employers to offer flexible work arrangements for employees. We have improved support for families, through the enhanced marriage and parenthood package in 2013. Most recently, we have made it easier for couples to have children, by subsidising and increasing the number of child care places available. As we continue to move toward a more equal society, we hope that women will not have to choose between family and career, one over another. Because requiring or compelling women to choose one over another is not a good option for us as a country, as a society. Our demography factor is that we are facing an aging population. As you know, life expectancy is extending. Because of the baby boomers coming into retirement, we have actually quite a big group that are in the 60s now who are retiring and leaving the workforce. So we actually need all pairs of hands that we can lay ourselves on to keep the economy going. So we do not want women to select themselves out of the workplace, neither do we want them to choose career over family. Because we do want our women to have children and also to supplement the population in Singapore. So we need women in both of these spheres. And so our policies actually do not have women choose one over another, but to give women the options to make choices. So we hope to have a good balance of both for women, if we want.
   
   

   Role models of resilience in the Malay/Muslim community

6. You are also not alone in managing these multiple aspirations. There are many role models around us. There is so much we can learn from them – qualities such as tenacity, courage and resilience.   
7. Take Ms Yusrina Yaakob who will be joining us later during the panel discussion. Yusrina is the first Singaporean Malay/Muslim woman to summit Mount Everest, and she did so after more than 50 days of trekking. Her quest to conquer the highest mountain in the world started in mid-2010, with her team aiming to summit by 2015 to mark SG50. But, her team had to abandon that climb when a strong earthquake struck Nepal while they were there. I’m sure we all remember that tragic occurrence. She did not give up, and finally achieved her goal in May this year. I like to hike, but hiking Mount Everest is a big step and I really am inspired by what this team of climbers have done.
8. Many of us have our own personal ‘Everests’ to overcome. Sometimes, it might be too overwhelming to do so on our own. This is why it is just as critical to have social resilience – support systems and networks that enable us, all together as a group to bounce back from adversity, or to climb the peak Everest together as a group.
9. Ms Noor Mastura, a young leader from the community, has built such a network. Before becoming a property agent, Mastura and her family suffered years of financial hardship. After carving out a successful career in real estate and turning things around, she decided to help those going through similar hardships. In 2013, she set up the youth volunteer group Back2Basics, which now distributes groceries to more than 40 families in need. To ensure inclusiveness, they sourced for Halal certified groceries, enabling them to deliver to families of diverse faith backgrounds.
   
   

   Make use of opportunities and pursue your dreams

10. As young Malay/Muslim women achieving success in your fields, as well as non-Malay women sitting amongst us, I think you have a big role to play in shaping Singapore’s future. I urge all of you to seize the opportunities available to develop yourself further. MENDAKI has a Future Ready Unit to better prepare our youths for the challenges that lie ahead. They recently launched “Socialthon”, a platform to bring young adults and industry experts together to find innovative solutions and testbed ideas to get the community geared up for the future economy. The National Youth Council (NYC) has several development opportunities for young people to develop resilience, leadership, and a heart for service, through Outward Bound Singapore (OBS) and Youth Corps, which is our main vehicle for youth leadership in community service. So I urge all of you to tap on resources such as Our Singapore Fund and the National Youth Fund that will help you start new projects if you like, so that the ideas that you have in your mind, that little flame that got ignited by discussing with one another, by brainstorming here, we hope that could provide some fuel to get the fire going; and our Singapore Fund, the National Youth Fund are two of such funds that will help our young people, We just need you to be committed to the cause that you feel passionate about. By supporting you through such funds, we hope that you will be able to make our home a better place.
    
    

    Conclusion

11. In closing, I’d like to acknowledge the work of MENDAKI Club and PPIS and partners such as NYC and LBKM, in organising this dialogue. I’m very excited to be part of this dialogue and also to listen to the panellists, because this is really our way to get the conversations going on our shared vision of what Singapore should be and how we as a group, can really do something to this place we call ‘home’, a much better place for ourselves and for our future generations.
12. So thank you very much for organising this and inviting me to this event. I look forward to an active dialogue with all of you. Thank you.
    I hope you will find the discussions useful, and come away energised with new ideas and aspirations to benefit the community. I wish you all the best. 

Thank you.