YSA_NEWSLETTER__FEB_2018

Khwaish | February 2018
3
FROM THE
PRESIDENT’S DESK
Happy New Year everyone! And, just like that, we are into 2018!
Before you think, here goes another cliché “the year just flew by” gripe, I will spare you such whining. If anything, 2017 was
a really busy year for us at YSA and we are glad to have had a breather at the end of it. However, this break is a short one,
as we have an equally, if not more, active year ahead of us.
For starters, the first quarter of the year will see our regular slate of events – Project Khwaish XVII Certificate Presentation
Ceremony and the Racial Harmony Football Tournament – taking place. Besides that, in the first half of the year, we will
hold our Annual General Meeting, with the Khwaish Lecture soon after. The latter typically features an eminent speaker
discussing a current topic.
Following on from last year’s trend though, we are also hoping to continue our innovative approach of introducing new
programmes and activities. Last year, we made a fledgling effort to celebrate the Global Sikh Women’s Day on 7 March
2017 by running a social media campaign termed #IAmKaur, where Sikh women from across Singapore posted on social
media what it meant for them to be a Kaur. This year, we intend to build on that by having a more elaborate campaign to
celebrate the Global Sikh Women’s Day. Do stay tuned to our social media platforms for more details on this campaign!
In 2017, YSA also participated in and supported the inaugural ASEAN Sikh Economic and Entrepreneurship Summit (ASEES)
organised by a group of young Malaysian Sikhs. This year, we are poised to intensify our role in this regional summit as it
makes its way to Singapore, with YSA being the lead organiser. This ties in nicely with our dual objectives of professional
development as well as thought leadership. On the professional development front, YSA has been getting its feet wet
and we took small, albeit progressive, steps towards deepening our contribution on this front in 2017 as we developed
a framework to engage and bring together Sikh professionals. Starting with a group of Sikh doctors and another of Sikh
lawyers, YSA is exploring ways to meaningfully engage industry professionals in different sectors so as to establish, among
other things, support systems for younger Sikhs existing in or entering these industries.
On the thought leadership front, YSA’s experience with the Sikh Voices franchise in 2017 was a reasonable attempt at
creating platforms to stimulate discussions and conversations on strategic concerns facing the community. The Sikh Voices
book, for instance – which you will read more about in this issue of the newsletter – helped create a conversation on what
the Sikh community needs to look for in leaders in the future. The Sikh Voices conference raised pertinent points on key
challenges facing the community and helped to catalyse some responses to these issues. The experience of deepening
our foothold in professional development and thought leadership will, thus, be useful preparation for YSA’s work with ASEES
this year, which will unmistakably be a mammoth exercise.
The spirit of collaboration, a key feature of YSA’s ethos, will continue to guide our way forward in 2018 as we look to
work and develop partnerships with groups and organisations in and outside the Sikh community. In this regard, I am
pleased to share an encouraging collaboration that has been brewing in the Sikh community, which YSA is also involved
in. Towards the end of 2017, YSA, Sikh Sewaks Singapore, Naam Ras Kirtan Darbar and the Khalsa Dharmak Sabha Youth
Wing came together to explore ways in which we could collaborate. The four youth-oriented groups also decided that
they would hold such informal meetings periodically over the course of the year for better coordination and alignment of
our activities, plans and leveraging on mutual resources and strengths. This is a tremendous and encouraging progression
in the community and bodes well for its future.
One of the areas that these youth groups will be coming together to collaborate on is to celebrate the 550 th birthday
celebrations of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji in 2019, which would be ideally be a pan-community effort. At the most recent
meeting of the Coordinating Council of Sikh Institutions, the organisations decided that the youth groups will develop and
lead these celebrations next year – a great effort in empowering our young in community leadership.
With such bold and encouraging signs, the year could not have gotten off to a better start!
Here’s wishing everyone a prosperous, healthy and blissful 2018!
Mr Malminderjit Singh