AFMEN's Policies

Disclaimer: This website is part of a school project and is meant for educational purposes only. The views expressed herein do not represent the views of any individuals, groups, political parties and/or organizations outside of Crescent Girls’ School. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Members, all from class 3S2: Afrein Rehanna (1) Erna Adlina (6) Faith Chan (7) Nicole Ng (8) Micole Yang (15)

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Introduction

Hello, thank you for visiting our website. We are a newly established political party in Singapore, and after reading our principles and policies, we hope that you will support us in our campaign to improve Singaporean's welfare. 

Our members consist of:

Afrein, Faith, Micole, Erna and Nicole, which forms our party's name and motto. 

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AFMEN's Logo

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Analysis of Poverty in Singapore

Singapore is the 6th most expensive Asian city, is one of the priciest places in the region to park a vehicle, is the 3rd most expensive office location in the entire Asia Pacific, and is among the most expensive top 10 cities in the world. Having come across these statistics so frequently, one has got to wonder, how are the people coping with these sky-high costs and how is the government resolving the problem? 

In Singapore does not refer to absolute poverty as Singapore is much better off than many other countries in the world. However there is relative poverty, primarily because of income inequality. 

In the past 40 plus years, Singapore has undergone rapid development and globalization to become an international financial hub. The society is relatively stable and has a low crime rate.

However, this rapid economic development has caused the situation where a group of people benefit and become wealthier, while others are left behind. Where they are people earning hundreds of thousands of dollars, there are people who have to make do with less than a thousand dollars a month, which is barely enough to survive Singapore's extremely high cost of living. 

Furthermore, with the governments' policy of "Foreign Talent", the large influx of foreigners coming to Singapore to work is leaving a lot of Singaporeans disadvantaged. 

Singapore, having started developing at a much later age than many develop countries, has many older Singaporeans who do not have any qualifications, as they dropped out of school due to lack of finances. Thus, this group of Singaporeans who lack complete education lose out to the more-qualified foreigners, increasing the number of people in Singapore who are relatively poor. 

This inequity in wealth among Singaporeans is extremely detrimental in the long run if not alleviated. Poorer families in Singapore are unable to afford rising prices of housing, and cannot afford complete education. This will result in the generations after, lacking in qualifications, losing job opportunities and thus suffering from the same vicious cycle of poverty again. 

Further gripes that the people have with the current situation in Singapore are;

- High cost of Housing - Goods & Service Tax (GST) of 7% on purchased goods - Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) that charges vehicles for road-use - Rising transport costs (e.g. $0.71 per stop for adult train fare) - Education (linked to Employment) 

In the following posts, our party will propose policies which will alleviate the problems faced in Singapore, and improve the welfare of the people. 

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Our Aim, Values, Motto and Manifesto

Our Aim: To ensure that the issue of Poverty in Singapore is reduced and in time, eradicated. 

Values: To always fight to ensure that the needs of the people are met.

Motto: Always Fighting to Meet Everyone's Needs  

Manifesto:

We will not stop in our struggle to alleviate the sufferings of the people in Singapore. We are passionate and deeply-committed to our cause, and we will not give up in trying to achieve it.

Our party greatly values integrity, where we will work in the government solely for the purpose of helping the people, with no ulterior motive of salary or prestige. 

We aim to be the peoples' government, being selfless yet strong, nurturing yet wise, and able to ensure Singapore's development as well as not neglecting the peoples' fundamental needs. 

Here's a quote that shows our purpose and values:  "Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth" - Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States of America 

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Policies to Combat the Problem

Firstly the government should set an official poverty line. This will allow the government to find out which families earn much lower than average. and they will have the priority in getting help from organisations (such as Housing Development Board). 

Education:

- Train the teachers to be more creative & encouraging. This way the students will be more encouraged to come to school and think more creatively and out of the box, so that they can think of better ideas in the future to aid them in finding jobs and in their jobs.

  - Subsidies for transport & food. Subsidies will be given to students whose parent's income fall below the official poverty line in terms of transport to schools and the students daily pocket money to purchase food and other necessities.

- Equal distribution of resources to the school. This way parents won’t put so much pressure on their kids to get into the top schools as right now, only the top few schools in Singapore have elite programmes that are interesting and creative that will benefit the students in the future after they have graduated. All students in Singapore should be entitles to these programmes

Housing:

- Provide subsidies for those whose income fall below the official poverty line to allow them to at least have a roof over their heads, even if they have to buy a one room flat

- Build more small flats as these will be more affordable for families whose income fall below the poverty line. This will meet their needs of just one or two rooms, instead of having to struggle to pay for a 5 room flat.

- Government owned property can be rented out at a lower price.