TIE-UP TO INSPIRE NATIONAL SERVICEMEN FATHERS

A fancy tie or a restaurant dinner are all very well, but a mutual gift of time may well be the best present on Father's Day.

And on 19 Jun, 500 participants and their families came together to celebrate the occasion at Theme Up!, a football event held at SAFRA Tampines. The first tournament to be held under the SAFRA Football Fiesta series, it featured a special Dads For Life category where fathers partner their children in a futsal (a variation of football played on a smaller pitch) game as well as a Football Circuit Challenge.

These activities were part of the new two-year partnership between SAFRA and the Dads For Life movement - driven by the Fathers Action Network (FAN) - announced by Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Defence and National Development Dr Mohamad Maliki Bin Osman at the Theme Up! event.

"I'm very happy that SAFRA has collaborated with FAN to facilitate greater involvement of fathers, particularly among national servicemen. We have over 200,000 SAFRA members, and 50 percent of them are already married... If you look at activities like today's, it's a start to show that we can create platforms for fathers and children to come together to interact and bond," said Dr Maliki.

"I think the idea behind all this is that it is critical for fathers to be involved in their children's' lives, and we want to encourage national servicemen to understand that. When the family environment becomes strong, it benefits them as well, because the family is supportive and they can perform their roles very well as national servicemen," he added.

Launched in 2009, the Dads For Life national movement aims to inspire fathers to be more involved and a good influence in their children's lives. FAN is a community-led work group of the National Family Council.

With the partnership, SAFRA will receive $700,000 in funding from Dads for Life to include more family-oriented activities and support the movement in its calender of events.

For instance, signature SAFRA events such as the SAFRA Singapore Bay Run & Army Half Marathon and SAFRA AVventura 2012 will incorporate categories specially catered for fathers and children. New events like Camp @ The Float, where fathers can spend a night out camping at Marina Bay with their children, are also in the works.

For 34-year-old father Mohamed Norian, such events have helped him to bond not just with his own son, but also other participating fathers and children.

To take part in the futsal challenge, he had trained together with his nine-year-old son Mohamed Erfan Fitri, as well as team-members Mohamad Fazli and his son Mohamad Fiqry Ady, once a week at SAFRA Tampines for almost two months. Their efforts paid off as they emerged victors at the Dads for Life futsal event.

"It's been quite special to me, because normally you just go out with your family for a picnic, but through this event, we've become much closer with other families. I've had a lot of fun bonding with my kid as well as my friends!"