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IT HAPPENED IN 2004. Mrs Veronica Ong, the Centre Manager for the Salvation Army Bedok Multiservice Centre for the Elderly and Bedok Rehabilitation Centre, had in 2003 organised an Intergenerational Sports Day for a group of eldercare agencies and she and her committee wanted to do something somewhat similar again.

Her idea for 2004 was to rent the hall at Singapore Expo for an Intergenerational Racial Harmony Day 2004. It would be intergenerational because the activity involved seven elder care centres, students from Chinese High School, children from The Salvation Army Tampines childcare centre and corporate volunteers, who covered four generations between them.

At the same time, it was about racial harmony because among the seven centres were the Muhammadiyah Day Rehabilitation Centre, Sree Narayana Mission Home for the Aged Sick and the Man Fut Tong Nursing Home.

However, her proposal could not meet the funding criteria of Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) funding policies.

Mrs Ong first applied for funding from MCYS's IGB Fund (Funding for Grandparenting and Intergenerational Bonding Programmes) which had sponsored the 2003 sports day. This time, her application was not approved because the proposed programme did not contain a strong enough bonding component between two or more generations.

Promoting understanding and bonding between generations is the essential element that distinguishes an IGB project, said Ms Verlencia Tan, the MCYS officer who dealt with Mrs Ong's application. But Mrs Ong was insistent on keeping the focus on racial harmony, which was the emphasis of the 2004 initiative, Ms Tan recalled.

So she was referred to the Racial Harmony Department of the same ministry. However, the Community Harmony Grant Scheme required a long-term developmental element. For example, a project to draw up teaching guides for pre-school teachers would qualify, but events like Mrs Ong's did not.

Meanwhile, everything else was underway - getting sponsorship, coordinating the volunteers, planning the logistics and liaison with the different agencies, said Mrs Ong. "The only thing missing was the money and without it, we would not be able to go ahead with the event."

Mrs Ong therefore re-approached the MCYS division in charge of the IGB Fund for assistance.

Ms Tan and other MCYS officers sat down with Mrs Ong and helped to strengthen the intergenerational nature of Mrs Ong's proposed programme. So, for example, they changed the cultural costume pageant to an intergenerational pageant contest by making each entry comprise a young and an old person. Another programme was also changed to include the participation of the younger generation with the elderly in a life-sized board game competition. That way, the old and young had to work together to win the contest. Funding was thus approved for an "Intergenerational Harmony Day 2004".

Relating her many experiences of liaising with the public on projects that required funding from MCYS, Ms Tan agreed that the public can be confused by the different funding schemes available and the criteria and objectives for each of them. Said Ms Tan, "We sometimes sit down and try to work out with the project proposers on projects that have potential to meet the objectives but may need fine-tuning. Sometimes, we help to further explain the funding policies and schemes in greater detail so the public will understand them better.

Reflecting on Mrs Ong's experiences, Mr Sumardi Ali, MCYS Quality Service Manager, said, "When initially approached, it would have been helpful for the division she first contacted to consult the other divisions internally to explore whether and how it was possible to help Mrs Ong. Referring her to another division was not a very helpful thing to do. In fact, the civil service has since introduced a 'No wrong door' policy to ensure that our customers are no longer sent from one department to another or from one ministry to another. It is good that Ms Tan took the extra step of working with Mrs Ong to bring about a successful event."