The official launch of Grander Together took place on 29 November 2025 at Bidadari Community Club. Mr Ishak Ismail (chairman of the Families for Life Council) graced the event as guest-of-honour. Here is the transcript of his speech.

Wow, Alison. Energy. Passion.

I conclude from her I’ve got a lot to learn, so I’ll be learning, led by you.

Mr Darius Lee, executive director of Cultivate SG,

Families, are you here? You are. Some big families here. All families.

Of course, we have parents; subset of families.

Grandchildren are you here? Grandchildren are you here?

Yeah I see lots of them here. Of course, we have a partners, community partners, educators.

Who have I left behind?

Grandparents! Are you here? Ya, and don’t forget, grandparents include granduncles, grandaunties, everybody is of that big happy family.

Very good afternoon. And I’m really, really happy to be here today and to witness another milestone in the journey of milestones of families.

And this is the official launch of Grander Together. And we know it’s a new initiative by Cultivate and team. And I just really want to shout out to the Grander Together Taskforce led by Alison, an entire team I’ve been starting to meet. And there are familiar faces. There are people who are not just doing this, I think they’re doing a lot more reaching out in a good way.

And, of course, a very silent member here smiling at me, I must accord Jason [Wong] for being the advisor again. When I heard Jason is in this, sure swee one ah!

Thank you so much for putting your time, your thought and your energy into starting this. And this is the day we say, “Oh you’ve done a lot! But today we say you cannot go back. This one official already.” You want to bring it out there to the community, and say “Thank you for that very big stuff.”

Now we know what the three things that Alison said.

What does Grander Together want to do?

Cultivate stronger intergenerational families in Singapore.

And this completely resonates with our Families for Life movement. I’ve been in the Council for about ten years as a volunteer, five years leading as a chair.

And you know the many things we want to do, we don’t have hands and legs. If you look at it, I’ve got young children, I’ve got youth, I’ve got pre-marriage, marriage; then we got so busy in the centre there, it’s so busy in the left, there is a space [in the right]. And this space, we are so connected with; this space, the grandparenting space.

We are here because we believe that if we invest in grandparents, if we facilitate their bonds with their adult children and their grandchildren, we are investing in the foundation of what makes families and communities resilient.

That is the core of what we’re doing, because I now have a deep personal conviction.

I could put up my hand just now [to identify as a grandparent] because, just a few months ago – two months, to be exact –I am now promoted socially to be a grandparent, which is a blessing.

And I was so glad when Shenton connected with me a few months ago, because you know, baby in the tummy right? So okay, I hope all’s well. And I hope that I come today to be able to see this. So this connection is personal. And it’s a role and I’m learning and learning, and will continue to learn.  

So you say, “Have you told stories to your grandchild?”

Not yet lah. Two months. I speak, I sing. I don’t think [I can tell] stories yet. But I’m looking forward to that.

I think that connection gives us – me and my wife – a lot of wonderful new excitement to learn and grow.

And of course, we also want to reflect and I thank you for sharing your personal story; that reality that just yesterday, you continued to talk about boundaries. You know, it never ends, in the communication we have with our children. I’m just at the beginning of this.

And to be honest, I have two events today. In the morning I was talking about pre-National Service enlishment, talking to about 900 parents and children. Now, talking about grandparents.

What was in between? Have a guess; I had a break in between one event to the other.

Go and see my grandchild.

So yes and because I know – this one modern parents – my daughter and my son-in-law were like, “Today go where? Go Expo, go Hyrox.”

What kind of parents can leave the child behind? And my wife is away. So I say, “Ah my opportunity to steal the moment.”

Grandparents, like you say, we never stop talking about it, right?

So just about an hour ago, I was feeding my grandchild. In that moment I was thinking of now, speaking to you guys. So there’s a lot to be done.

I think the part I want to talk about is bonding and communicating, exactly what Alison alluded to. So, bonding and communicating with elderly family members, grandparents, granduncles, grandaunts means we meet them where we are.

You know for the young parents here we meet them where we are. We understand our needs and then having them share and, of course, we share our wisdom, experiences with our families.

There is a converse and that is, we as grandparents; we also need to understand that bonding and communicating with the younger generation.

We also need to understand the different perspective, their different mindsets, and they are shaped by their new learning, their new experiences and their new context.

And it’s a kind of two sides.

So we need to work at building the bonds across generations and therefore cultivating mutual respect, empathy and care. To say one generation is not the cleverer.

Alison tells us we need to continue to learn, right?

So let’s look at this again.

On the one side, the younger generation stand on the shoulders of generations before and hence learn from the wisdom and the experience of this generation.

Then you look at the other hand, we the older generation need to understand the younger generations and they are dealing with their own new realities. They are also armed with new knowledge.

Of course, some a lot comes from the internet with AI (artificial intelligence).

But there are also those that are like in the “Triple P” parenting programme. We take lessons over time. We take it, we update it to the new realities.

So there’s new learning in context of the new generation.

Again, we put this together, what is the answer?

So you take one on the left hand, one on the right hand, we put it together.

I just want to show you: One team.

I think this whole journey we’re going to start and we launch is about one team coming together. And it’s not about who knows better, but as one team, make it better for everyone. Make it work for everyone in the team.

And it’s not just about grandchildren, which we tend to overstep, and not about just us as grandparents.

The one team is about being a family and the family is the basic building block of society.

So, as one team, is where I would say I’m going to learn and understand how we all can move this together.

Let me share an experience – and Alison shared her experience – I and my wife had to update our own knowledge of something we did in the past.

Yes, in the past it was the way to do it. And I think if I say it you’ll know it is ‘no go’ anymore: Baby sleeping on the tummy.

No, ‘no go’ anymore. But you know this is what we were told and we believed in that.

My both children slept on the tummy. Certainly, update, and I would agree: ‘no go’. So I had to learn.

It’s crazy now. It sounds like, “What did you do?”

And then in my sharing with my daughter and trying to understand, we not only learn our way, we also share their way.

So we say and as Alison said, you know, be careful.

We campur tangan or we meddle. We actually think we’re helping, but we meddle.

So I think this is where the ‘one team’ needs to come together.

We update ourselves as grandparents to be helpful.

Of course, there will be challenges and these challenges are not uncommon.

Every family has its own unique challenges. Whatever it is, whether it’s the cost of living, challenges of caregiving. Then, of course, there are families – we recognise – across the families of different needs.

Some children with special needs, some are families affected by divorce. Some are families affected as single parents. Some are families with foster children. In our common society – and I call it common society – there are all these unique cases.

So I think, together, we will find a solution.

And remember that we are all on the same team – grandparents, parents. And this is why Grander Together organisation is: As families have challenges, we go beyond ourselves to figure out how we can then support.

So, regardless of situations, grandparents can be called on as a source of support, whether it’s emotionally or practical stuff and we can all do something for these families as they face their challenges.

As PM (Prime Minister Lawrence Wong) said, we build a “We-First” mindset, and this again is another organisational example of “We-First” together. We support Singaporean families across all their different types.

I like the name – when Shenton shared with me – the name “Grander Together”.

So I want to share the journey we took for Families for Life. When we started off, we were National Family Council, then we become “don’t be so zeng hu, don’t be so government”, so we became Families for Life.

And then, over time, we created Dads for Life – which today is anchored by Centre for Fathering – and then they started Mums for Life. So, actually look at my T-shirt, I have Families for Life, and the three. And then we look at that therefore we take on – like I said – the various things.

I don’t know whether we can take it complete: There’s a Mums for Life, Dads for Life…

Cannot be “Grandads for Life”; doesn’t sound right.

So Grander Together sounds good.

I think this is where, as a new organisation, it’s meaningful. It reflects the important role of grandparents.

The word “grander”, right? “Grander” connotes how grandparents make families richer through their wealth of experience and stories.

Then the word “together” speaks to their unique ability to strengthen the entire family. They foster the bonds between the adult children, the siblings and the in-laws.

And then they connect the grandchildren, and they connect with the cousins, and all the extended family.

So Grander Together represents also not just a family. Grander Together is all of us being grander together, meaning: the connections among grandparents as a community. That’s what we need to do.

We’re going to bring it as a community, creating networks, strengthen and broaden family communities collectively as one team again.

And therefore, for me, when I just started this journey I’m really energised by the possibility of making my own family grander through meaningful connections and stories that will resonate across generations.

So as we launch Grander Together today, we welcome you to the many, many other partners we

have been trying to cultivate in the same journey of family as a centre.

So in Families for Life, we welcome you. We recognise that grandparents are invaluable to families.

This is also in line with where we had a Singapore Made for Families Plan that was launched in 2022. In that plan Families for Life, we started quite lonely actually in trying to do this. We were doing things and we started things like, “Okay, our Triple P programme – the positive parenting programme –  was meant for parents, and they learn new ways because new science of learning all happened and we made it evidence-based.”

Great. We got it right for the parents with a Singapore Made for Families plan. We simply need to also touch grandparents. So we updated the Triple P Programme also now to have one for grandparents where we get ourselves updated in new ways and needs of new parents.

Of course, there are talks, there are resources and now welcome you got to join us and you’re going to co-organise.

We’re going to come together and with all these talks and resources, we continue to do more work.

Therefore, as Alison has said, come and join all of us. Come forward to attend any of these programmes we have a Families for Life booth at the back, we have Focus on the Family and you can see all the materials.

Pick up anything you can, and let’s come together because this is something we recognise.

For us, every October – and I noticed that this year it’s in November, but we did launch it every October – is a moment where we focus on grandparents. And we’ll adjust and see the dates every year.

But this year, for example, we did the Families for Life Connecting Our Generations. And this campaign was to create an understanding of the young ones, the little ones.

We put all these things to childcare, to primary school.

And if you notice, for example, kids – they can make. The children make kits and then kind of say “Thank you, Ah Gong. Thank you, Ah Ma. Thank you, Datuk.”

And they give it to the parents who recognise that grandparents are important to forge family bonds.

So, welcome. I look forward to the partnership.

I want to look forward to working closely with Cultivate SG, with the Grander Together team and it’s so nice to see Alison doing it.

By the way, Alison’s husband is a council member of Families for Life too. So, already, the partnership was sealed many, many years back, and continues to be sealed by the families that they continue to grow. So this one is a partner.

And my wish today, as I conclude, is we must become grander together. We teach, we inspire, we love. We teach, inspire and love our families, and we build enduring values. So support our families at home and in our society wherever we can, whenever we can, in whatever way you can; because, ultimately, we cannot do this alone and as one team together, we are indeed grander.

Thank you very much for this opportunity. All the very best on your journey and I wish everyone a good afternoon, a very good weekend.

Thank you again.

(Note: The views expressed in this article are the speaker’s own, and may not necessarily reflect the views of Cultivate SG and/or Grander Together.)