Campaign launched to help Malays fight diabetes

SINGAPORE — As part of the Government’s efforts to engage the public in the “war on diabetes”, a six-month nationwide campaign targeted at the Malay/Muslim community will be rolled out next month.

The campaign, led by the People’s Association (PA) Malay Activity Executive Committees Council (Mesra) with the Malay Activity Executive Committees (MAECs), grassroots and community organisations, was launched on Sunday (Sept 25) at the Kolam Ayer Community Club.

This comes a day after a six-month public engagement exercise was launched to gather views on combating diabetes, which will contribute to the Diabetes Action Plan that the Health Ministry will roll out progressively from next year.

As of December 2014, the Malay community, which accounts for 13.5 per cent of the population, makes up 24.4 per cent of people on dialysis. One in nine Singaporeans aged between 18 and 69 years old has diabetes.

Under the campaign, residents will participate in health screenings, fitness programmes, healthy cooking workshops, health talks/exhibitions and interactive games.

It aims to ensure that more residents are aware of their health conditions, and how to eat and cook healthy food as well as exercise regularly to fight diseases such as diabetes.

The PA Mesra and all 96 MAECs will work with more Malay/Muslim organisations and mosques to organise some 50 healthy carnivals and/or activities in constituencies. The PA Mesra is also encouraging residents to form small community groups to look out for one another on health issues.

Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Yaacob Ibrahim told reporters at the launch of the “Health Fiesta: Let’s Be Healthy — Say No To Diabetes” campaign that he had asked PA Mesra to consider how to target their efforts at young children.

“We’ve asked them to work with the kindergartens — the mosque-based kindergartens and other kindergartens — to see how we can start them from young to adopt an entirely different lifestyle,” said Dr Yaacob, who is the Jalan Besar GRC Member of Parliament.

“It’ll be a challenge: It involves changing habits of how they eat, the kinds of food that their parents provide, but I always believe that by working through the children, we can do a lot more.” He has also asked the PA Mesra to consider all platforms, including the PA’s Malay cultural show Gentarasa, to drive the message home.

“This has to be a concerted effort. Mesra is an important organisation in the ... Malay/Muslim community. It has many touchpoints. We should leverage all the touchpoints that we have,” he said. Parliamentary Secretary (Education and Social and Family Development) Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim also said at the launch: “We want to (set a) target for the Malay/Muslim community whereby I think this is a good time for us to engage and work with the community to see how we can reduce the percentage ... of diabetes to our healthcare issues.”

He added that there was a need to relay the message to eat healthily. For example, people can eat nasi briyani, a common dish among Malay/Muslims, in moderation, said Assoc Prof Faishal.

Human resource officer Selamah Latip, 60, who was at the event, said she would attend health talks under the campaign. “It’ll be useful for me because I want to know more about diabetes,” she told TODAY.

Resident Noorani Othman, 58, added that the campaign was a good initiative to raise public awareness of the foods one should avoid to prevent diabetes. “It’s a good start, I can learn more about diabetes,” said the nurse.