My Story

Intro

Ever started something and learned by doing just because there was no “course” or “teacher” available to guide you through your experience? Bernise had to experience just that, and than decided to support other young people by creating a platform that could nurture budding activists and entrepreneurs, whatever their passion or cause.

About Me

I’m from Singapore, and I’m really passionate about empowering and activating young people as change-agents in their communities! Why did I become a (budding) social entrepreneur? For me, that is a strange question because I never thought of the term “social entrepreneur” when I got started – all I knew was that I saw many areas where young people could be better equipped to take social action, and to fulfill their potential to participate fully in all aspects of society.

Of course, my personal experience getting involved in student government in my college days in Sydney had a lot to do with it. Growing up in Singapore, my idea of “community involvement” was based on exposure to things like Flag Day (collecting coins from the public with a tin), beach clean-ups, visits to old folks’ homes, and not much else. So, it was only when I got directly involved with student campaigns and projects that were cause-based (rather than activity-based), and that actually fought for the well-being of other fellow students, that I opened up my worldview. I saw for myself how students who cared pooled their energy and smarts together to make conditions better for students, and to speak out for those without a voice. This courage and dedication inspired me, and made me aware of my responsibility to make social change happen back in my own home country.

When I came back, one of the first things I did was to organize a community workshop on the Millennium Development Goals for young people, and from there I learnt a lot about organizing the community and the importance of building networks and relationships, exactly the skills I wished I had when I started out! Knowing first-hand the pain of NOT having such a service/organization on the demand side, it made perfect sense to me to create the kind of platform that could nurture budding activists and entrepreneurs, whatever their passion or cause.

My Venture

Syinc is a nonprofit committed to equipping young people to find innovation solutions to social change. The idea of “social change” is broad – so we focus on only 2 areas: Building skills, and growing networks. Reason: I found these to be the 2 biggest obstacles facing young people who want to apply themselves to tackling problems in our world.

We run a number of different projects, including a conference (Syinconnect), Open Forums, a UN youth engagement programme, film events, a social business plan competition, among others. We are also developing 2 programmes currently: An incubator for social enterprises or long-term social initiatives; and an education programme on social innovation to be run in schools and corporates.

In the mid-long term, I see Syinc enlarging the market of socially engaged young people, as a proportion of the Singapore population, and then SE Asia. I want to see not only lives impacted by our programmes, but to also engender a broader mindset shift in the way we do social action – and in people’s life and career choices.  This can then lead to young people being more informed so that they too can participate more fully in all aspects of social, political and economic life.