Giving career guidance to less-advantaged students
Today marks the day Singapore fell to the Japanese 80 years ago in 1942. The Straits Times' Lim Min Zhang speaks with five people who have gone beyond the call of duty to strengthen Total Defence - introduced in 1984 - to emphasise how every Singaporean plays a part in the country's defence.
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Mr Clarence Ching believes social mobility cannot be achieved unless students have equal access to opportunities.
Specifically, he wants to help Secondary 3 students in Normal (Academic) or Normal (Technical) courses and those on financial assistance schemes to land work attachments, and be in mentorship programmes and career workshops.
To this end, the 27-year-old, a former Normal (Academic) student who studied political science at Durham University in the United Kingdom, founded non-profit Access Singapore in 2019, which he runs full-time. It has about 60 volunteers and has helped about 150 students from secondary schools, the Institute of Technical Education and junior colleges to date.
"Essentially, this is our little experiment to see whether we can really tackle social mobility by providing more opportunities," Mr Ching said.
Other than getting funding, one challenge is getting companies to believe that providing work stints for young people is a worthwhile endeavour.
While the long-term impact of Access' work is still unknown, some students have seen their confidence bolstered.
Mr Ching said: "One of our students went to (social media website) SGAG to do a work attachment, and two months after, his teachers were telling us he's much more vocal."
