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2021
Making Waves
AWARE founding member Vivienne Wee once described activism as trying to move a paper boat to shore in a lake by throwing rocks to create ripples. Sometimes the attempts are insufficient—sometimes they may even set your boat back in the wrong direction—but you keep trying, anyway. In 2021, the ripples AWARE had been generating for some time grew into sizeable waves: from the national gender equality review that the government embarked upon for the “Year of Celebrating SG Women”, to Executive Director Corinna Lim’s lecture series as S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore, to our efforts to meet the tidal increase in demand for our CARE services. Through all this, we managed to not just keep our heads above water, but to ride the swells of change towards the shores of a glittering new future.
Illustration by Jolene Tan
Address from our president
In December 2021, a small group of people gathered for the launch of a book titled Gender Equality: The Time Has Come. That the book was authored by Corinna Lim, AWARE’s executive director, was unsurprising. What was significant was that the book was published by the National University of Singapore’s Institute of Policy Studies, or IPS.
The book is a compilation of the three lectures Corinna delivered in April and May 2021 as the 8th S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore. The fellowship was established by IPS in 2013, with each fellow giving a series of lectures. The first seven fellows were establishment types—academics, civil servants, corporate leaders.
Corinna was the first civil society activist to be named a Nathan fellow, and she was asked to tackle the topic of gender equality. She was offered the fellowship shortly after the Government launched its year-long review of gender equality in Singapore, an effort that ultimately involved getting the views of nearly 6,000 people on the issues that matter most to women.
AWARE was formed 36 years ago precisely to work for gender equality, so this was the moment we had been waiting for. Corinna took some time off work to read, discuss and think about what she wanted to say in her lectures. And the team at AWARE, armed with the knowledge and experience of more than three decades of research and advocacy, put together “An Omnibus on Gender Equality”: a comprehensive 250-page report with 88 recommendations spanning the entire life course of women—growing up, employment, motherhood, caregiving and retirement.
The Government’s White Paper on gender equality has just been released, containing exciting and timely proposals—many of which AWARE had called for. We look forward to working with all relevant parties to help fine-tune these recommendations and move closer to full gender parity in Singapore. Even so, we know that closing the gender gap will take a long time. So we are pressing on with our efforts to ensure we have a sustainable and resilient AWARE—wider and deeper funding sources; talented and committed staff with a good pipeline of leaders; a strong network of partners and allies.
AWARE’s work is guided by a strategic plan that is refreshed every few years. We began the process of shaping our new strategic plan in early 2021. The finishing touches are now being put to the Build-Connect-Inspire, or BCI, plan (download here) that will take us through to 2025.
We should, by then, be a little closer to the gender equality that AWARE has been calling for since 1985. The time, indeed, has come for all of Singapore to want, and to work for, full gender equality.
Margaret Thomas
Eight Highlights from 2021
AWARE (Association of Women for Action and Research) is Singapore’s leading women’s rights and gender-equality advocacy group. Since 1985, AWARE has worked to identify and eliminate gender-based barriers through research, advocacy, education, training and support services—including a long-running Women’s Helpline and Singapore’s only dedicated Sexual Assault Care Centre. AWARE’s current focus areas include supporting survivors of domestic and sexual violence, enabling women and men to better balance work and caregiving, improving single mothers’ access to affordable housing, and combatting workplace discrimination and harassment.
Unique Entity Number: S85SS0089B (registered since 1 January 2009)
Address: 5 Dover Crescent #01-22 Singapore 130005