More new immigrants to serve as grassroots leaders in Singapore

SINGAPORE (Xinhua) - Expecting to see more new immigrants to Singapore as community leaders in the future, Singapore's People's Association is planning to induct more of them into the ranks of grassroots leadership, local TV Channel NewsAsia reported on Saturday.

Currently, some 3,000 new immigrants are grassroots leaders. They make up nine percent of Singapore's 33,000-member strong grassroots leadership.

The People's Association hopes to make community leaders out of 300 more new Singaporeans - increasing the proportion of grassroots leaders who are new immigrants from the current nine percent to 10 percent by 2014, according to Channel NewsAsia.

Finding new leaders to serve is more than just about creating volunteering opportunities through mass community integration events, the association will work with clan and immigrant associations to search for potential leaders who are willing to volunteer.

Grace Fu with the Prime Minister's Office was quoted as saying that immigrant bodies and local organizations have struck a close working relationship, which in turn promotes deeper cross-cultural understanding.

Fu said through interaction with others, grassroots leaders can facilitate common understanding, even if it involves the work of dispute resolution.

"We hope to get more people to step forward and represent views of diverse groups so that the government can actually have a more diverse representation, and understand the needs of each community stakeholder better," she said.

"So whether you're a new citizen, old citizen, we'd like you to step forward, do something for the society, and that's how we can get engagement from our citizens."