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Everyone involved with the Dyslexia Association of Singapore (DAS) was delighted when the DAS was appointed a Global Partner of the International Dyslexia Association (IDA). We have come a long way in less than 20 years when in July 1 989 the Rotary Club of Raffles City (Singapore) proposed forming an organization dedicated to helping dyslexies in Singapore.
In 1995 the wife of then Prime Minister of Singapore, Mrs. Goh Chok Tong, became our patron, and Singapore's Ministry of Education provided an initial grant of S$500,000 to set up our first school-based, dyslexia learning center. The DAS continues to work closely with the Ministry of Education whose funding for the DAS in 2007 was S$2.4 million, which constituted 45% of our total budget.
In 1996 the first Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, disclosed that he had mild dyslexia and donated a large sum of money to the DAS. The President and First Lady of Singapore also showed their support for the DAS and dyslexic children when they visited our Dyslexia Centre in 2005.
The DAS is a not-for-profit association that concentrates on providing high quality professional services in four main areas: 1) raising awareness of dyslexia, 2) providing assessments, 3) teaching services, and 4) training. Our goal is to build a world class organization concentrating on these four core areas.
For those who have not visited Singapore, it is one of only four city-states in the world. Since independence in 1965, Singapore has enjoyed great commercial and financial success and is now among the wealthiest nations in the world in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per...