Singapore - A knowledge network is being developed by the Malay-Muslim community to help parents face the challenges of raising a family.
The Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Dr Yaacob Ibrahim said this would help to tackle problems facing the community, such as rising teenage pregnancy rates and early marriages.
Starting with the Family Forum 2007, parents are joining forces and sharing experiences about successful parenting.
Mendaki is gathering positive experiences from families to either publish these accounts in a book or make them available through the internet.
Dr Yaacob said: "We call this community knowledge. Knowledge that resides within the community that cannot be captured through government official statistics, but can only be captured by people sharing their experiences with the wider community."
Mendaki has already started compiling information on how parents and students have coped and benefited from changes in the education system.
The information will be compiled into a booklet and distributed at the Education Seminar for Parents, which will be held at the end of July.
Dr Yaacob said: "We have come across single-parent, low-income families with kids doing well in school. They must be doing something right. We want to learn from that experience and share it with other low-income families so that they can follow their paths."
The long-term aim is to expand the community knowledge to other areas of interest, such as time management and financial planning.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com (3 Juli 2007)
