New BP Buddies Initiative Promotes Blood Pressure Awareness with Student-Parent Interactive Learning

For the first time, the Singapore Heart Foundation is embarking on a pilot initiative that will empower both students and their parents to become heart health advocates, who will impart what they have learnt to others in their family and beyond, through a “train-the-trainer” approach.

Singapore, 29 May 2026 – The Singapore Heart Foundation (SHF) has just taken its 17-year-old Heart Heroes Programme to a new level with the launch of a pilot initiative known as “BP Buddies” today at the Bukit View Primary School, to promote heart health through student-parent interactive learning.

The launch event, which aims to engage 100 student-parent pairs of participants, was the highlight of SHF’s May Blood Pressure Measurement Month activities this year, and it was graced by Mr David Hoe, Adviser to Jurong East-Bukit Batok GRC Grassroots Organisations (Clementi).

A Step Up from the Existing Heart Heroes Programme

BP Buddies is an enhanced version of SHF’s still-ongoing Heart Heroes Programme, which has spread important heart health knowledge relevant to the prevention of cardiovascular disease and blood pressure monitoring to students and school staff members nationwide over the last 17 years. Last year alone, the programme had engaged more than 99,000 students and school staff members across Singapore.

The new initiative will empower not just primary school students, but also one of their parents, with heart health knowledge specific to blood pressure measurement and monitoring. This makes them “buddies” in a drive to promote blood pressure awareness together as SHF’s heart health advocates.

In addition, instead of loaning blood pressure monitors to the students who are trained, BP Buddies will equip each student-parent pair with a complimentary blood pressure monitor and heart health education materials, as a gesture of SHF’s commitment to empower and encourage those who are trained to train others.

“Through the interactive learning experience, which also fosters quality child-parent bonding, we believe that BP Buddies will be able to amplify heart health knowledge, with the students and their trained parent keeping an eye on each other’s heart health, and paying it forward by sharing the knowledge that they have gained with more people,” Mr Lim Kiat, Assistant Director, Strategic Partnerships and Philanthropy and Senior Nutritionist, Singapore Heart Foundation opined.

Schools as a Conduit for Spreading Heart Health Knowledge

Hypertension remains a major public health concern in Singapore, affecting more than one in three Singaporeans aged 18 to 74. Known as a “silent killer”, it presents no symptom and can go undetected without regular blood pressure monitoring. Over time, undiagnosed hypertension could lead to serious cardiovascular complications, such as heart attacks and strokes, possibly leading to death. With that in mind, SHF recognised that it is imperative that knowledge about hypertension and blood pressure monitoring must be inculcated from a tender age. That is why schools have always been the important partners of SHF in its quest to educate the young about heart health.

Bukit View Primary School is one stalwart supporter of SHF’s Heart Heroes Programme for the last 11 years, and it is now also on board the new BP Buddies initiative. Mdm Teo Eng Hui, Principal of Bukit View Primary School remarked: “We are proud to be partnering with the Singapore Heart Foundation in this new meaningful initiative that engages and bonds students and their parents with heart health knowledge. We believe that this unique approach will create a powerful ripple effect, which will encourage families to detect hypertension proactively and adopt a heart-healthier lifestyle.”

Participants Proud to be Heart Health Advocates

Students and parents who are part of the launch event for the new pilot initiative share the same view.

Primary Five student, Pong Jing En, 11, whose father has hypertension, is one of them. She said: “What I learnt about hypertension and blood pressure monitoring today was easy to understand and very useful. Now I can help my daddy monitor his blood pressure every day!”

Jing En’s mother, Mdm Chia Chooi Sun, 44, commented: “I am glad to be able to learn more about hypertension and how to measure my blood pressure correctly through this interactive session with my girl. Hopefully, with what I have learnt, I can bring greater awareness of heart health to those around me and influence them to proactively take charge of their heart health too.”

BP Buddies will be rolled out to schools nationwide in time to come and will complement the still-ongoing Heart Heroes Programme.