Under one roof: Three Malay-Muslim institutions to be housed at Wisma Geylang Serai

SINGAPORE — Malay-Muslims may now get access to help and services offered by three key Malay-Muslim organisations under one roof.

The three are the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis), self-help group Mendaki and the Malay Activity Executive Committees Council (Mesra) under the People’s Association. They are now housed in a single office called “M3@WGS”, located on level two of Wisma Geylang Serai.

Members of the community may approach the office to get information on the services offered by Muis and Mendaki, ranging from financial assistance applications to zakat payment. Zakat is the obligatory act of almsgiving for Muslims.

Members of the public who wish to know more about Mesra’s cultural or heritage programmes may also approach the office.

The centre will be operational seven days a week, allowing the public to engage Mendaki and Muis on its services beyond office hours.

The idea for M3 was first mooted by Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli last June, when he said that greater collaboration among the three organisations would help overcome challenges within the community.

Speaking at the launch of M3@WSG on Friday (Jan 25), Mr Masagos, who is also the Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs, said that Geylang Serai was chosen as the location for the office as it is in the Malay heartland and is also well-connected to the rest of Singapore.

“At the time it was mooted, Dr Maliki Osman (Senior Minister of State for Defence and Foreign Affairs) had said, why not bring the three institutions here and tell the public that if they don’t know where to go, they can come here?” he said.

Mr Masagos added that with the establishment of the office, no one would be turned away until help was found for them.

“The most important thing is that when they come here, they are not pushed from door to door,” he said.

“We believe there is no wrong-door policy and each of the organisations’ staff has been briefed that they will own the clients until the client finds the help that they need. There is a system of cross-reference in place.”

As for individuals whom the M3@WGS is not able to help, Mr Masagos said that the office will refer them to the “appropriate agency”.

He believes that with all three organisations located in the space, they would be able to collaborate and leverage each others’ strengths.

Since M3 was conceptualised, the three organisations have been working closer together to increase their outreach to the community.

For instance, last September, they launched a 10-week programme called KelasMatematika at various community centres in Singapore to teach pre-schoolers basic mathematical concepts.

While Mendaki took the lead in conceptualising the programme, Mesra co-ordinated the programme at a national level and Muis focused on promoting the programme to families who were zakat recipients.

During the launch, M3 unveiled its logo of three different-coloured letter "M"s joined to form a cube. A 90-second video encouraging members of the community to volunteer for the M3 institutions was also launched. It will be telecast on Mediacorp’s Suria channel and online platforms.