Singaporean of the Year finalist: They started charity to support struggling youth

SINGAPORE – A missed interview for medical school ended up changing the trajectory of one young man’s life, leading him to a career in community work.

A regular in the Republic of Singapore Navy after signing on at 19, Mr Narasimman Tivasiha Mani had dreams of becoming a doctor.

At 28, he was called for an interview to study medicine, but missed the opportunity as he was deployed in a submarine – a covert operation he was not allowed to tell the school about.

While waiting for another chance to apply for medical school, he approached Singapore Boys’ Hostel – a rehabilitation centre for young offenders – to do a year-long volunteering stint.

“Three months into it, I realised this is what I need to be doing. I decided to give up my aspirations to become a doctor, to my family’s dismay,” said Mr Narasimman, now 40.

While working at the hostel in 2015, he met Mr Joshua Tay, who was taking a gap year before beginning his studies at Yale-NUS.

Mr Tay had decided to work at Singapore Boys’ Hostel before starting university because he heard it was short-staffed.

While working there, he realised that while juvenile offenders were getting help to get back on track with life while they were in the hostel, support on the outside was lacking.

So he teamed up with Mr Narasimman to continue to engage the boys after they had been discharged from the hostel.

The pair tried to meet the boys for tutoring at a community centre, but many never attended these sessions, so after two years of effort, Mr Tay and Mr Narasimman changed their strategy.

In 2017, they started engaging the boys at their homes.

“The more we engaged these boys outside the hostel, the more we found out about their community, and the more we saw the extent of the need. There are many youths facing significant adversity in the community (and these issues) just aren’t being flagged up,” Mr Tay, 30, said.

To address that, Mr Tay and Mr Narasimman started Impart in 2019.

The non-profit organisation has helped more than 1,400 young people facing challenges such as mental health struggles, financial difficulties, domestic violence and homelessness.

After leaving his full-time job at Singapore Boys’ Hostel in 2020 to focus on Impart, Mr Narasimman went for eight months without a salary, surviving on his savings instead.

In the course of engaging young people, he even paid for some of their needs out of his own pocket.

“It was a rough journey, to be frank. I left a stable job to give this a try. My family told me I needed to have a timeframe – to give it six months before I needed to find a paying job,” Mr Narasimman said.

But his faith in the organisation’s purpose paid off – in 2021, Mr Tay told him they had secured enough funding and donors to properly run Impart full time.

That year, Mr Tay graduated from Yale-NUS with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics.

While his peers went into fields such as management consultancy and technology, he has no regrets that he pursued community work instead.

He said: “There was a need in front of me, how could I ignore it?”

Since its beginnings, Impart has deployed more than 1,000 volunteers into the community.

One of the charity’s latest initiatives involves reaching out to reclusive youngsters who are not in education, employment or training.

These teenagers meet in the virtual world of the game Minecraft, where they can play team games and speak to their peers without leaving their rooms.

This is to progressively equip them with skills to face challenges, and to encourage them to communicate with others.

Impart also runs a crisis response initiative called Imna, which works with young people struggling with suicidal tendencies and self-harm.

The first teenager whom the non-profit helped – a 17-year-old who did not show up for most of his N-level papers – has now returned to Impart full time as a youth mental health advocate and paracounsellor.

Mr Narasimman said: “What keeps me going in Impart is knowing there are still children out there struggling. Every day, we read stories of children who want to take their own lives, who are being neglected, et cetera. Until every child is cared for or found, we want to find a way to reach out to them.”

Mr Narasimman and Mr Tay are finalists for The Straits Times Singaporean of the Year award, now in its 10th year.

The Straits Times Singaporean of the Year (SOTY) is an award that is given to a Singaporean or group of citizens who have made a significant contribution to society. This can be through achievements that put Singapore on the world stage, or by going beyond the call of duty to selflessly improve the lives of others in the community, among other ways.

The award is organised by The Straits Times and presented by UBS Singapore. The official airline partner is Singapore Airlines and the global hotel and Awards reception partner is Millennium Hotels and Resorts.

• For more info on SOTY, go to https://www.straitstimes.com/soty24

Prizes for award recipient and finalists

Award recipient receives

• $20,000 cash

• One pair of Singapore Airlines business class tickets for each individual/group, up to three pairs of tickets for the winning group

• A five-night stay in any of Millennium Hotels and Resorts’ properties globally, up to a maximum of three sets of accommodation for the winning group

Finalist receives

• $5,000 cash for each individual/group

• One pair of Singapore Airlines economy class tickets for each individual/group, up to a maximum of three pairs for each group of finalists

• A three-night stay in one of Millennium Hotels and Resorts’ properties globally, up to a maximum of three sets of accommodation for each finalist.