Eat With Your Family Day is Made For Families!

To encourage Singaporeans to forge stronger bonds with their families, employers are encouraged to allow employees to leave work at 5pm on 19 November 2021, Friday, to have a meal with their families. In a special edition of Eat With Your Family Day, about 100 families will be enjoying a Made For Families evening of fun with great prizes to be won. Ms Indranee Rajah, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, will be engaging the participating families on Zoom to find out what “Made For Families” means to them.

The “Eat With Your Family Day is Made For Families” virtual event marks the last Eat With Your Family Day (EWYFD) of the year. This virtual event is organised by Centre for Fathering, MUMs for Life and DADs for Life, in partnership with Families for Life, in support of Made For Families.

Minister Indranee said: “Eat With Your Family Day is an important reminder to make time for our families. While many of us have been working from home, a lot of that time is spent on virtual meetings or emails. We should make a concerted effort to disconnect from work at regular intervals and enjoy precious moments with our loved ones. I am happy to know that there are more than 600 companies that are supportive of such family-friendly initiatives today. Family-centric companies are much more likely to have a happier and more productive workforce, find it easier to recruit and retain and have a positive work culture. Let’s all join in to build a Singapore that’s Made for Families.”

Mr Bryan Tan, Chief Executive Officer of Centre for Fathering, said: “During this COVID season when many individuals are working from home, employees often grapple with the blurred boundaries of work and life, at times working beyond normal working hours. Eat With Your Family Day reminds parents to put aside their work and devices, and connect with their children during meals. To date, over 600 organisations are committed to Eat With Your Family Day by encouraging their employees to stop work at 5pm once every quarter to bond with their families over dinner.”

Sharon Ng, HR Director of Michelman Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, said: “A family that eats together, stays together. The Eat With Your Family Day initiative, which our company joined in 2017, is one of the family-friendly initiatives that has helped improve our employees’ work-life harmony and morale, resulting in happier and healthier employees which aids productivity.”

During the event, participants can look forward to fun and interactive games to discover more about family-friendly organisations, places, and public amenities, with prizes to be won. Each participating family on Zoom will also receive $50 worth of foodpanda credits, which can be used to purchase any items on the foodpanda platform, or to order a hearty meal to dine at home with their family. The virtual event will also be streamed on the Made For Families Facebook page at www.facebook.com/MadeForFamiliesSg ↗ (opens in new tab). Interested parties can tune in and stand a chance to win vouchers too. More information about the event can be found at go.gov.sg/madeforfamiliespartners ↗ (opens in new tab).

Made for Families partners
foodpanda and Centre for Fathering are one of the many partners who have adopted the Made For Families brand mark. This signifies their commitment towards building a family-friendly Singapore, through initiatives, programmes, amenities, products, and services that support families and raising children.

Since the launch of the Made for Families brand mark in June 2020, around 80 businesses, organisations and community groups have adopted it. They come from various sectors, ranging from hospitality, leisure, food and beverage, retail and ecommerce, to government agencies and community groups. This initiative by the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD) in the Strategy Group, Prime Minister’s Office, aims to assure families of the support offered by the Government and community at large. For more information on Made for Families, please refer to the factsheet.

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About EWYFD
EWYFD was launched in 2003 by the Centre for Fathering to encourage organisations to arrange for employees to leave work at 5pm so that they can eat with their families. The initiative also aims to remind parents to put aside time to eat with their children regularly.

Held on the last Friday of each school term, the dates for EWYFD 2021 are 12 March, 28 May, 3 September and 19 November. EWYFD is a joint effort by Centre for Fathering, MUMS for Life and DADs for Life, in partnership with Families for Life and in support of the Made For Families initiative. For more information, visit fathers.com.sg/ewyfd ↗ (opens in new tab).

About Centre for Fathering, DADs for Life and MUMs for Life
Centre for Fathering (CFF) is a non-profit organisation founded in 2000 to promote active and involved fathering and address issues caused by fatherlessness in Singapore. The organisation aims to turn the hearts of children towards their fathers by empowering more fathers to be better role models and an enduring inspiration to their children.

Since 2015, CFF has been the driving force behind Singapore’s nation-wide fathering movement – DADs for Life, which seeks to inspire and mobilise fathers to become more involved with and a good influence to their children... for life. Under the DADs for Life umbrella are initiatives such as DADs@School, Back to School with DAD, Eat With Your Family Day and Celebrating Fathers – to encourage fathers to spend time with their families and create a culture that promotes active fathering.

MUMs for Life celebrates a mum’s unique identity as a woman and her irreplaceable roles as a daughter, wife and mother. When Mums are confident in their unique identity and multiple roles, they can better nurture our children and support DADs in building a stronger family in an increasingly complex world.

About Families for Life
Families for Life’s (FFL) vision is to inculcate a “Families for Life” mindset and value among Singaporeans, by building strong and resilient families, as that makes for stronger communities and better individual well-being.

To achieve this vision, FFL rallies like-minded individuals, families and organisations to strengthen family bonds through the FFL Movement. FFL works with various stakeholders to build the ecosystem that support families in the community, offers family life education programmes to equip families with the knowledge to navigate the different life stages and enrols volunteers to support the FFL movement.

Visit https://familiesforlife.sg ↗ (opens in new tab) for tips, resources and interesting activities you can enjoy with your family!

About Made For Families
Launched in June 2020, “Made for Families” is a brand mark that represents the different ways - big and small - in which Singapore supports families. An initiative by the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD) in the Strategy Group, Prime Minister’s Office, Made For Families aims to assure families of the support offered by the government and community at large. We also hope to call out to more employers, corporate and community partners to contribute, and collectively build a conducive ecosystem that supports families in Singapore.

For more information on Made for Families, please visit www.madeforfamilies.gov.sg ↗ (opens in new tab).

Download
Made For Families factsheet ↗ (opens in new tab)