I *heart* NYC

- also known as National Youth Council.

I got the grant!


My jokes about expressing profuse gratitude for covering the equivalent of my airport taxes in total (SGD-AUD exchange rate factored) notwithstanding, I think my satisfaction derives more from symbolic reasons - that youths are still being supported in their social change efforts off these urban jungle shores. Or maybe it's just relief that I haven't been completely blacklisted - yet.

[Ed: This post has more, but the link isn't showing up. As always, techpundits welcome. Meantime, just click on the timestamp for the full post.]

On a heavier note back home - late on the game as this is - I'm rather disappointed by how Durai of NKF has conducted himself in the course of this debacle, including the oft-witnessed knee-jerk wielding of Weapons of Mass Defamation. And of course, you know, the general failures in accountability and transparency of Durai NKF.

I think that many in the mainstream media (local and international) and Singapore blogosphere have sufficiently debated the issue of transparency, so I won't beat it further to death. However, one thing that caught my eye, as it did Akikonomu's, was Balaji's comment on the NKF being such an efficient organisation. What is with the government's obsession with the free market?

I find it extremely problematic to engage in discussion about the non-profit sector in Singapore when it is so overwhelmingly framed by liberal economic parameters. Yes, it is important to minise waste (particularly) in a non-profit organisation - in fact inefficiency is one of my biggest gripes with certain arms of the UN - but the point that seems to have been missed is, the element of competition in market forces is often fundamentally in conflict with the nature and processes of non-profit organisations themselves.

This, perhaps, may be where the line of the 'efficiency' argument needs to be drawn: it is good practice to minimise waste of any kind in an NPO, insofar as it does not compromise the objectives and principles the organisation is founded upon.

Much of this rant stems from my imminent path in the non-government sector, I think, but it doesn't take away from the issues facing non-profit work in this.. market culture, that we have in Singapore.

It's rather ironic for me personally, reflecting on this, in the light of citizenship issues that scream to be ploughed through. It had already begun at the immigration counter in the arrival hall just a few hours ago, when they wouldn't let me get through (initially) because the extension on my expired Sg passport that I'd received from SIR wasn't physically reflected - even though I was officially travelling on my Aussie passport. How I suppressed my urge to roll my eyes in the face of their "who's this girl and what's she trying to do" flurry, is beyond me.

And to go back from the huge digression, a few concluding thoughts:

I'm glad Durai resigned

I'm glad Mrs Goh CT decided not to be an NKF patron anymore

I hope NKF's loss of some 4000 donors, as well as nearly 44 000 signatures on this NKF responsibility petition, sends out a clear message on the gravity of lack of transparency and accountability


Technorati: NKF, Singapore, non profit