Singapore Indian Development Association

The Singapore Indian Development Association (SINDA) is a self-help group that works towards the educational and socio-economic betterment of the Indian community in Singapore. It serves all Singapore citizens and permanent residents of Indian ethnicity, with the Tamil community forming a sizable group, being the largest Indian community in Singapore.

SINDA primarily offers programmes and assistance schemes to help the less privileged in the community to maximise their potential and achieve improved social mobility. It also partners with other ethnic self-help groups in Singapore to offer collaborative help to all Singaporeans.

SINDA was initially founded in July 1990 as a society. Former ministers S Dhanabalan and S Jayakumar were SINDA’s founding Patrons, while Members of Parliament S Chandra Das and S Vasoo served as its Advisors. The management of SINDA was vested in an Executive Committee, headed by E Sukumar as President, Abdul Rashid Gani as Vice-President, R Shankar as Secretary, and V V Giri as Treasurer. 

Initially, SINDA focused on three projects to address social issues in the community. The first was the SINDA Family Service Centre (FSC), established to assist families and individuals in coping with the challenges of daily living. The second was Project Vidya, an education support programme to identify high-performing Indian students and provide them with the necessary support and enrichment to excel further. The final project, Indian Children in Child Care Centres, aimed to encourage more working Indian parents to send their children to child care centres, providing a safe, healthy, and stimulating environment for quality childcare.  

A membership drive was also launched in the early years to appeal to all Indians to support SINDA by enrolling as members. As a non-profit organisation, its main source of income came from membership fees and donations from benefactors and well-wishers. Steps were also taken to work closely with other Indian organisations to provide valuable services to the community in social, welfare and educational fields.

Reconstitution of SINDA
At the same time that SINDA was formed in August 1990, Indian political leaders in government established the Action Committee on Indian Education (ACIE), with J.Y. Pillay as Chairman, to address the educational underperformance of Singaporean Indian students and propose an action plan for educational upliftment. ACIE submitted its report in June 1991. The government agreed with the report's findings and decided that SINDA should be reconstituted to serve as the umbrella organisation to implement the recommendations. The Government also approved a community fund, to which all working Indians would contribute, to fund SINDA’s programmes and services.

The new Executive Committee of the reconstituted SINDA, formed in August 1991, was led by Pillay as President. N Varaprasad and E Sukumar were appointed as Vice-Presidents to head the Education Wing and the Family Development and Welfare Wing, respectively. Soon after its revamp, SINDA appointed S Iswaran as its first paid Chief Executive Officer. 

In January 1992, the Education Wing initiated the SINDA Tutorials for Enhanced Performance (STEP), which subsequently led to the establishment of SINDA’s tuition centres throughout the island. The Wing also included parent outreach among its key initiatives to educate parents on the importance of providing supportive home environments for their children. The Welfare Wing started family life education talks to guide families on healthy relationships, while offering marital workshops for young and newly-wed couples. SINDA also gained charity status in October 1992.

Expansion of Programmes and Services
By the 2000s, SINDA was running a slew of programmes designed to provide community support in a holistic manner, from counselling and community talks to workshops for parents and student mentoring. Notable initiatives included Project Teach, a school-based tutorial program to help students in core subjects, namely English, Mathematics, Science, and Tamil; and Project Athena, which empowers and builds confidence in Indian single mothers and their children. The Back to School Festival was launched to provide low-income students with essential school supplies for the upcoming school year. 

SINDA also recognised the need to motivate Indian youths and raise their aspirations, and launched the SINDA Youth Club in 2010, which organised several programmes and camps for the youth. This period also saw the joint launch of the Collaborative Tuition Programme by the four ethnic self-help groups, which opened their tuition centres to students of all races.

Evolving to Meet Community Needs
Two decades into SINDA’s inception, while significant strides had been made in improving academic performance, there was still a continued need for greater social mobility and maximisation of the potential of Singaporean Indians. To propel the community towards greater progress, the SINDA 2020 Strategic Review was initiated in 2010. The Review recommended a multifaceted and multi-pronged approach to addressing community gaps, as well as upstream interventions to tackle issues from the outset. These included placing greater focus on pre-school education, strengthening tuition efforts, and promoting youth and family aspirations. As a result, SINDA introduced several new programmes and initiatives and existing programmes were enhanced to meet evolving needs.

These efforts also solidified SINDA’s position as a leading pillar in the community, working with a variety of stakeholders and partners to offer a wide range of educational, social, and enrichment programmes to the Singaporean Indian community. SINDA serves approximately 25,000 beneficiaries and participants in the Indian community annually.

For more information
Singapore Indian Development Association. Accessed on 1 August 2025. (n.d.). https://www.sinda.org.sg/
Perera, Audrey. A place in the community: SINDA at 20 looking back moving forward. Singapore: Singapore indian Development Association, 2011

தமிழில் வாசிக்க

Return to home page

About the Encyclopedia

The information in this article is valid as of August 2025 and correct as far as we are able to ascertain from our sources. It is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete history of the subject. If you have any feedback on this article, please submit here.