About Us

Our Breakthrough Approach

The Empowered Families Initiative (EFI) is a developmental program that aims to invest in the plans of Singapore’s lower-income families to improve their life circumstances and their socio-economic position. These plans could encompass employment or business opportunities, skills upgrading, clearing debts, savings, building their assets and more. Through EFI, families have access to funds, savings matching and peer support networks. Combined, these resources help families empower themselves by increasing their self-confidence and resilience - key ingredients to break through and unlock cycles of opportunity and upliftment. The Breakthrough might happen at different stages for families. We help them build the foundation to make it.

With our Breakthrough Approach, we want to not only change the lives of our EFI families but also bring about systemic change, creating a new mindset and dialogue around poverty and working with lower-income families.

Our Vision

With our approach we aim to change the mindset of low-income families by providing a springboard towards upliftment by helping them achieve their goals, building their confidence and consequently unlocking cycles of opportunity.
We hope to scale up and out by reaching more families, involving EFI alumni and building capability within the sector through Community of Practice (CoP), bringing the concept of EFI to more orgnisations and programs, unlocking more buy-in and continuous funding to increase impact.
By providing evidence of success, we hope to drive systemic change by changing the values and mindset of the stakeholders in the system (social service professionals, funders and government) to recognise that low-income families have talents, potential and aspirations which can be leveraged to improve their quality of life, rather than just recognising their needs.
In 10 years, we hope to have enabled 14,000 low-income families to achieve their aspirations towards a better quality of life through a network of EFI chapters as part of various social service organisations and programs, strategic partnerships, funders, educational institutions and other contributors.

Meet the Team

Over 25 years’ sector experience | Existing relationships with sector partners | Strong faith and commitment to making EFI a Breakthrough in the ecosystem

Adriana Rasip

CO-FOUNDER & TEAM LEADER
Adriana is an asset-based community development practitioner (ABCD) under the National Council of Social Service Sun Ray Scheme (NCSS). In 2019, she was nominated as part of the NCSS 40-under-40 network. She is currently pursuing an MPA in Innovation, Public Policy and Public Value at University College London (UCL) on a scholarship.
Palvindran Jayram

CO-FOUNDER
Palvindran has over 10 years’ experience in the social service sector working with vulnerable individuals and families. Educated in Psychology and trained in Social Work, he is a champion for equal rights and civic responsibility. He is a passionate community development advocate and has contributed to the creation of Community Work Practice Guide for Singapore’s social service sector.
Sonia Jalal

CO-FOUNDER
Sonia began her career in the social services sector 8 years ago as a community outreach officer in Jamiyah Singapore. Today, she is a social worker at South Central Community Family Service Centre and provides casework and counselling services to lower-income families. She holds a Master of Social Work from the Singapore University of Social Sciences.