Our Impact
Our Impact
Since its inception, the Lee Kuan Yew Fund for Bilingualism has held true to its mission of enabling a steady pipeline of locally contextualised and age-appropriate resources and programmes to foster bilingualism in children. The focus has been on pre-schoolers, or even younger children, because the foundation for learning both the English and Mother Tongue Languages (MTLs) is best laid when children are young. Besides focusing on pre-schoolers, we have also broadened our focus to promote bilingualism as a lifelong endeavour.
We work closely with like-minded stakeholders and community partners, individual and entities to support worthy initiatives and programmes in making MTL learning fun, relevant to everyday life. Some of the partners we have worked with are:
Mediacorp
“Junction Tree” is Singapore's first locally-produced, bilingual pre-school programme. It is available in English-Chinese, English-Malay and English-Tamil versions. “Junction Tree” won the "Best Preschool Programme" at the Asian Academy Creative Awards in 2018. The programme can be viewed digital entertainment platform MeWatch.
Singapore Federation of Chinese Clans Associations (SFCCA)
To commemorate the Singapore Bicentennial, Singapore Federation of Chinese Clans Associations (SFCCA) showcased the "New World. New Life" exhibition to pay tribute to our nation's forefathers. The bilingual (CL-EL) exhibition, which was supported by LKYFB, is the biggest and longest multi-sensory interactive exhibition ever held in 33 years of SFCCA's history.
Tamil Language Council and the Malay Language Council Singapore
Tamil Language Council and the Malay Language Council Singapore are the main organisers of the Tamil Language Festival (TLF) and Malay Language Month (Bulan Bahasa) respectively. TLF and Bulan Bahasa programmes are developed and presented by community partners.
National University of Singapore Tamil Language Society
Singapore Tamil Youth Conference is a biennial event organised by tertiary students to discuss matters related to Tamil community and the teaching and learning of Tamil language.
Chicken & Egg
“Ah Ma Doesn't Understand” is a series of interactive drama workshops conducted at pre-school centres. Chicken & Egg organised the workshops to allow young children an opportunity to understand the importance of knowing their Mother Tongue and how it enables them to communicate effectively with others.
Woo Yen Yen
“Little Dim Sum Warriors” is a series of bilingual books and digital story apps specially designed to help children develop bilingual skills (CL and EL) through engaging content and interactive activities.
Zuzanita Zakaria
The bilingual (ML-EL) picture book “Alif Is Not Coming Down (Alif Tidak Mahu Turun)”, written by Ms Zuzanita Zakaria, was filled with colourful illustrations to entice young readers to read the book. Other than the hardcover book, the picture book is also available in an audiobook format.
The Fund-supported print resources are distributed to various pre-school centres in its distribution list. Copies of the Fund-supported books are available for loan at various public libraries.