SINGAPORE HINDU TEMPLES ROUND TABLE MEETING HELD ON 21.8.2011 

Singapore Temples Round Table Meeting was held on 21 Aug 2011 in SINDA. The meeting was hosted by Sri Muneeswaran Temple (Queensway) and it was organized by STC (Singapore Tamil e-Community).  The meeting was chaired by Mr M Govindaraju (Administrator, STC) and Mr Devaraj (President, Sri Muneeswaren Queensway Temple) as the Co-Chairman.

Among those present were Mr. T Raja Segar, CEO of SINDA; Mr. Thirunalkarasu, Chairman of Narpani Pearvai;  Presidents and administrators of temples in Singapore and representatives of individual religious organizations like Hindu Sabai.  Seventeen temples in Singapore responded to the invite favourably.
The Round Table meeting generated a productive discussion on a variety of topics, principally on how temples could better undertake community service initiatives and activities. While temples were doing their fair share of community-oriented activities, there was a need to better coordinate these individual efforts to bring forth greater collective synergies.

There was a suggestion of having a federation of temples in the future or having a looser structure with a temple coordinating the rest for a period of time on a rotational basis.

STC will be assisting the temples by posting and publishing their daily / monthly activities thru available mass media. STC is an informal, online and web-based grouping whose primary objective is to contribute meaningfully to the development of the Tamil community in Singapore.

Engaging and educating our youths about the significance of temples and our rites/rituals was also foremost on all minds in this meeting. It was recognised that a significant number of our youths needed guidance and that temples had an important role to play in this area. Various suggestions including involving them through 'sevai', using sports and explaining the significance of rites and rituals were put forth on how to better engage our youths in temple activities. These were discussed and there was consensus that many will be followed up.

Mr Rajasegar, CEO, SINDA shared the concept of a collaborative project that SINDA and the temples can jointly organize so as to reach out to the needy families who may be visiting temples. He explained that devotees go to temples when they have problems and hence temples are a natural space for them to share their challenges. A well structured system to identify and direct them to community resources that may be available at Family Service Centres (FSC), Community Development Councils (CDC), etc around where they stay will be a useful service. The children can be directed to SINDA’s educational programmes and some families can be case managed by SINDA’s FSC.

There was consensus and resolve to use our temples as key pillars to undertake more activities in a coordinated manner so as to contribute towards the overall upliftment of our Tamil/Indian community.

The 2nd Temples Round Table meeting will be hosted by Arulmigu Darma Muneeswaran Temple on 20.11.2011