Young Sikhs to explore future of local Sikh community and Singapore

| Singapore | 28 Sept 2017 | Asia Samachar |

The Young Sikh Association (Singapore) (YSA) will organise the inaugural Sikh Voices Conference on 11 November 2017 with a provocative and exploratory ‘What If’ theme.

Aimed at posing pertinent questions that the community needs to ask itself, the theme hopes to discuss strategies  ranging from the existential to adaptability.

The conference will feature panel discussions and activities aimed at catalysing thinking about the future of the local Sikh community and Singapore.

Singapore, as a young nation, has progressed phenomenally in its first 50 years of independence. However, like many developed economies, it faces several challenges in its coming years, from ensuring its economy remains dynamic and is job-generating, to maintaining its relevance in an increasingly competitive and uncertain world.

How do these driving forces then, should they materialise, affect the Sikh community in Singapore? Are Sikhs here equipped to face such trends? How, as a community, do we remain largely self-sustaining?

These issues, both macro and micro, will be discussed by the speakers on Panel 1, namely, former Singapore Member of Parliament Inderjit Singh, Asia Growth Capital Advisors Chairman/CEO Harjit Singh Bhatia and Singapore-based public intellectual and Future-Moves Group CEO Devadas Krishnadas.

The Sikh Voices Conference also aims to bring together Sikhs from all walks of life to discuss the challenges of the Sikh community in Singapore and its strategic implications. For example, what if our Sikh institutions fail to keep up with the community’s evolving needs? How do we ensure that our institutions are sustainable in the long-term and what if we are unable to attract a pipeline of talent for leadership positions in the community in the future?

Addressing these issues on Panel 2 will be Surjit Singh Wasan, member of Singapore’s Presidential Council for Religious Harmony and the Presidential Council for Minority Rights; Sarabjeet Singh, YSA’s Vice-President and an educator by profession’ Amarjit Kaur, a lawyer with Morgan Lewis Stamford LLC and Karamjit Singh, a prominent practitioner and commentator in Singapore’s real estate industry.

The third panel, which will feature a government leader, whose name YSA will announce later, will assess the important considerations of Singapore’s organising principles. What if multiracialism or meritocracy are no longer pillars of Singapore’s society or are at risk of being so? What if Singapore’s social compact, which emphasises individual and family responsibility, changes? The discussions here will also attempt to trace the impact of any of these changes on the Sikh community and what it may mean for a minority group.

With the potentially thought-provoking sessions, participants can also look forward to group discussions on plausible scenarios of the community in the future, the launch of a publication titled Sikh Voices that will capture the perspectives of thought leaders and community leaders on the leadership needs of the community and a short-docufilm on Sikh identity and heritage in Singapore.

YSA, which is rapidly acquiring a reputation as an innovator and thought leader in the Sikh and youth communities in Singapore, will also use the conference to showcase its Young Leaders Programme (YLP). Participants of the programme, which is currently in its second run, are behind the Sikh Voices conference and are organising this as their graduating project from the programme.

To participate in this inaugural conference, you can sign up for a free ticket at sikhvoices2017.peatix.com. For more information, feel free to contact the organizing committee on Facebook at http://bit.ly/2ykkfhy

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