Chinese club raises funds for Malay-Muslim self-help group
Tian Fu Club, an association for new Chinese immigrants mainly from Sichuan province, has raised $10,000 for the Malay-Muslim self-help group Mendaki. Mr Tony Du, President of Tian Fu Club, revealed the Club’s new emphasis to reach out to other communities in Singapore and to respond positively to the government’s call for integration.
Find out more Tian Fu Club and its initiatives in the article below.
Chinese club raises funds for Mendaki
Tian Fu Club donates $10,000 as a gesture of its desire to integrate
TIAN Fu Club, an association for new Chinese immigrants from Sichuan province, has raised $10,000 for Malay-Muslim self-help group Mendaki.
The money will be presented to Mendaki at the association's dinner tonight to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year. Cash awards totalling about $1,200 will also be given at the event to around a dozen of its members' children.
The association's president, Mr Tony Du, told The Straits Times that the association wanted to do its bit in giving to needy children from non-Chinese backgrounds.
'This is a token of our appreciation of Singapore, to express our gratitude and desire to integrate,' said Mr Du, who turns 54 this year.
He added that the money will go into Mendaki's general funds, following discussions with its officials earlier this week.
Tian Fu Club collected the money from an internal fund-raiser it started two days ago among its executive committee and 40 of the 60 members on the panel took part.
'People started chipping in with $100, $200, $800, $1,000,' said Mr Du. 'They felt the cause was meaningful.'
In 48 hours, $10,000 was collected, he added.
In a statement, Mendaki CEO Moliah Hashim, 51, thanked Tian Fu Club for its donation.
'As a non-profit organisation, we are always pleased to receive kind contributions and are even more heartened when our non-Malay friends step forward to lend us a hand,' she said.
She said that donations enabled Mendaki to provide programmes and initiatives to benefit more than 122,000 people last year, far more than the 75,000 in 2008.
The money raised by Tian Fu Club, she said, will finance programmes for mainly youths from needy families, single parents and families facing multiple difficulties.
Tian Fu Club, set up by Mr Du in 1999, is the first Chinese new immigrant association in Singapore. Its membership has grown from 600 at its start to more than 2,000 today.
The cash award for talented children of its members was set up in 2008 following its donation drive for victims of the Sichuan earthquake that year.
Asked for the rationale for donating to Mendaki, Mr Du, a Singapore citizen, said it reflects the association's new emphasis that it must move beyond its own community and spend some time understanding other communities in Singapore.
He also said the association will continue to respond to the Government's call for integration, by encouraging its members and their children to study English, do national service and put down roots in Singapore.
Tonight's event will be attended by Mr Lee Yi Shyan, Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Manpower, and Mr Liang Eng Hwa, chairman of the organising committee for River Hongbao 2010 and MP for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC.
The items in the River Hongbao Chinese New Year celebrations, held on the Marina Bay floating platform, include features that are a collaboration between the governments of Singapore and Chengdu city in Sichuan.
Source: 23 January 2010, The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. Permission required for reproduction.