Movement For The Intellectually Disabled of Singapore - History

History

In 1960, the Singapore Children's Society initiated several educational and training programmes for intellectually disabled children, leading to the formation of the Singapore Association for Retarded Children (SARC) in 1962. Beginning with only two teachers and 26 students in a single classroom in Towner Road, the new association rapidly expanded over the 1960s, building special schools at Margaret Drive and Jurong, a sheltered workshop at Geylang, a residential home at Tampines as well as their main administration centre, Lee Kong Chian Centre. SARC started a subcommittee for services for those with less severe intellectual disabilities in 1971 and a youth volunteering group the year after; the subcommittee was split into an independent organisation, the Association for the Educationally Subnormal (AESN), in 1976. In 1983 SARC launched the first early intervention programme in Singapore, prompting other organisations to follow suit and set up an adjunct subcommittee that became Special Olympics Singapore.

Since the term "retarded" had acquired negative connotations and the organisation had started services for adults, SARC changed their name to the Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore (MINDS) in 1985. In 1987, the organisation benefitted by being primarily funded from The Community Chest of Singapore, and in 1993 MINDS became the largest voluntary welfare organisation in Singapore, with AESN in second place. Relocation of the MINDS special schools, from premises of closed-down primary schools to new buildings with customised facilities, began in 1998. The association started their first social enterprise, a car washing service along Pasir Panjang Road, in 2001. Their residential homes and training centres were merged into the MINDSville@Napiri centre, which opened in 2007, and the relocation programme was completed two years later.