Our Operational Plan

Changi Simei, Singapore, 22 Nov 2010

Grassroots Seminar 2010….500 grassroots leaders from the 84 Divisions attended the seminar on 21 Nov 2010 at Marina Mandarin. 4 grassroots leaders and adviser, Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo represented Changi Simei.

The main theme for the seminar: A Great Home and a Caring Community – Building the Singapore Spirit. This new vision for the community together with 3 strategic thrusts, (a) Making Friends, Promoting Neighbourliness; (b) Connecting Youth and the Community: and (c) Building An Active Community and the 5 key performance areas were launched during the Grassroots Convention in July 2009. Immediately after the convention, grassroots leaders organised their workplan seminar to map out their respective strategies and priorities to realise the new vision.

Changi Simei CCC opted for a retreat to think about the new vision in Dec 2009 in Vietnam. Without any encumbrance and distractions from our works, our grassroots leaders map out our key priorities and to deliver them by 2015. Well, 5 years is a relative short term and to deliver these priorities requires the commitments of every grassroots leaders. It is all hands on deck.     

At this morning seminar, PA Deputy Chairman, Minister Lim Boon Heng and Dr Vivian Balakrishnan launched the Community 2015 Master plan which contained 84 “tactical” plans to achieve the strategic goal of A Great Home and a Caring Community. These tactical plans set out the areas that we will work towards, in partnership with other stakeholders, to build social capital in our community.

What is social capital? During the seminar, Chief Executive Director, Mr Yam Ah Mee provided clarity to this terminology. To sum it, social capital is about trust, reciprocity, confidence and network.

Trust need to be build over time through interacting with each other. Trust underpins confidence in each other thus providing the reciprocity through much needed support to help each other in times of need. In time of adversity, trusting each other is a major asset to build a resilient community. This can only be possible if a network of neighbours is available and can be called upon 24/7. Therefore, with an accumulation of social capital build over the years, two positive outcomes, social and security will be proliferated through racial and social harmony, social cohesion, care for one another, sense of belonging which will result in a more safe and secure Changi Simei.     

Theoretically, social capital is easily achievable by creating activities and events. Nonetheless, such approach may not last. Therefore, to succeed, Changi Simei’s work plan will comprise of three steps, conceptualise what we want to do, operationalise it with actions and to retain the knowledge, we will need to institutionalise our learning journey.   

In the last CCC’s retreat, we have conceptualise our thought and will operationalise our set objectives contain in our Master plan. Our operational plan is categorised into the 5 key performance areas to address our challenges in the areas of ageing population, growing social diversities and meeting the aspirations of youth.

In the Community of Volunteers, we set our target of a net 10% growth of grassroots leaders. To achieve the growth, we have mapped our recruitment strategies comprising of tea sessions, house visits, recruitment campaign etc at regular interval to be effective. We will also be focusing on training and mentoring new grassroots leaders to improve their competency in carrying out their community works. We believe that volunteers can only contribute if they find values and meanings in their contributions. Recognising their contributions is one strategy that we will work on to minimise attrition due to dissatisfaction on community works if any. We will also focus on building relationships with one another to deliver our tactical plans. Good relations will result in good results that we are aiming for.

For Bridging Youth Involvement, we plan to create and provide platforms for youth to contribute meaningful to the community by empowering them to organise youth related activities or setting up interest groups. Our platforms include grooming them in leadership positions in the GROs like the CCC, CCMC, RCs etc through training and mentoring. We aim to recruit a Youth Chapter in each RC with a membership of 250 youths per chapter by 2015. Though the target set is ambitious, there is no gain if we don’t try although it may go against the principle of low hanging fruits. We aim high to challenge our thought process, imagination and our soft skills.

In the area of All Estate as One, we aim to strengthen communications and feedback and to expand our outreach to create opportunities for quality interaction with each other. Together with improved communications channels like town hall meetings, facebook, floor parties, grassroots updates, everything east website etc. With current technology on content management, perhaps we can create our own Changi Simei’s website to bring information and activities of our constituency to our residents at a quicker time with low cost and in an eco friendly environment. The establishment of Communication Liaison Officer at the grassroots level will help in planning and delivering our strategy to create vibrancy in Changi Simei where people from all walks of lives meet to interact to promote neighbourliness and build the social capital in Changi Simei.

We now live in a global village connected via the internet which is in virtual world. We need to translate our global village into a real village. We therefore need to reach out to residents in the virtual village via the current social networks like the new media. Dealing with faceless virtual world citizens does not promote social capital. Therefore, we need to harmonise virtual citizens by bring them into the real world through activities and face to face contact. The holding of hands can only be realised through quality activities which virtual citizens desire. There is no point organising some thing that virtual citizens are not interested in. The challenge is how to integrate Virtual and Real World Integrated as One. This can be carried out through an immediate action plan to publicise and encourage the use of availability of new media to draw our residents in and through our new approach activities to draw them out to the real world.    

No man is an island and to rely on individual effort may not reap benefits. We need to engage our community partners to facilitate our strategy of A Great Home and a Caring Community. We aim to collaborate with our local schools, government agencies, trade associations etc to strengthen our network thus leverage their strengths to reach out to our residents. Therefore, our Partners are our Outreach multipliers.

Our Master plan is a collection of our tactical plans up to 2015. It is the culmination of our year long efforts to deliver our vision for Changi Simei.

Planting a few Trees today will Go a Long Way Tomorrow

Changi Simei, Singapore, 14 Nov 2010

How many trees have we planted over the years since the launched of the Tree Planting Campaign by Minister Mentor (MM) Mr Lee Kuan Yew who was our Prime Minister (PM) in 1963 to make Singapore a garden city? I don’t have the correct figures.

Based on information make available in the internet, probably about 50,000 to 60,000 trees are being planted each year by National Parks Board under the various schemes. This would mean that Singaporeans may have planted between 2.3 to 3 millions numbers of trees since 1963. For these numbers of trees, I am not sure of how much of our land area is covered by shades and greenery, but suffice to say that these trees take in carbon dioxide from the air and help to preserve the environment caused by global warming.     

Tree planting campaign in Singapore was mooted by our MM out of necessity as in its early years when 95 percent of Singapore’s original vegetation had to give way to urbanisation and industrialisation. The government of the day could have just ignored the environmental impact in favour of meeting the high demands for housing and the creation of jobs to stabilise the economic, social and political stability in Singapore. If such happened, perhaps Singapore is now a desert instead of an oasis in the East.

From the tree planting campaigns in the 1960s, by 1971, it became known as Tree Planting Day. The first Tree Planting Day was held on Sunday, 7 November 1971 by the late Dr Goh Keng Swee when he planted a rain tree at Mount Faber. Though the political leadership, the tree planting day has evolved into a community event with the first Sunday in the month of November being designated as tree planting day. Since 2005 or thereabout, tree planting is now an integral part of the year long Clean and Green Singapore campaign.

When I took over the chairmanship of the Citizens Consultative Committee (CCC) in 2002, I had wanted to do away with the annual tree planting to refresh the meaning of going green in the community. I remembered and Mr Tan Kim Hock and the late Mr Balakrishnan who argued against discontinuing with the tree planting tradition. Their arguments were sound and I reconsidered my position. Tree planting day is still an important calendar in Changi Simei since then and we also continue with our go green effort through other means.

This morning, 14 Nov 2010, the East Coast Town Council and the CCC jointly organised our tree planting day. Although our tree planting day may not fall within the first Sunday of the month of November in view of scheduling challenges, nonetheless, the objective of our tree planting day to create more shades and greenery in Changi Simei remains.

The CCC had selected Blk 146 under RC Zone 3 to host its tree planting day. We planted 4 trees in view of space constraints. Ms Jessica Tan, our Member of Parliament planted the first tree while I planted the second tree.

Nonetheless, beyond tree planting, we would need to do more to protect the environment It is easy to say that I support the go green movement. But how many will go beyond the symbolic support and “go real” in go green actions? Just look at these trees, it was pruned to “beyond” recognition. From afar, these trees look like they are diseased. The over pruning may have caused harm to these trees. To the contractor, perhaps it was the lack of supervision of workers but the larger issue is the lack of awareness of environment knowledge. These workers may not understand that their actions may have “killed” these trees. There is still a long way to go clean and green effort.

Our earth, the only one that we have is now suffering from many years of neglect. The fast climatic changes as a result of industrialisation and pollutions will result in global warming and perhaps more natural calamities. Collectively, we need to do some thing to save the earth. We need to go green now otherwise, our generation is also one of the generation which commit our future generations to self-destruction. Let go green now by adopting the reuse, reduce and recycle approach to save the earth.

Creating social capitals…hub and spoke

Changi Simei, Singapore, 10 Nov 2010

We Build, We Engage and We Bond ….. through a social network. To start with, there is a need to create the local network through the hub and spoke system in each HDB Block and linking these HDB blocks in a bigger neighbourhood network.

This is the concept that I am thinking off to create an inclusive Changi Simei where every resident lives, works and plays in the company of warm and friendly neighbours in a gracious living environment. This is a long-term vision of Changi Simei which may take many years to reach although we have seeded the vision since 2006 of creating an inclusive and vibrant Changi Simei.

The hub (RC) and spoke (housing units) system is essentially designating each HDB block as a hub and each floor as a spoke to reinforce the hub. What it means is that in the first phase, each spoke consisting of 4 to 8 units will serve as a platform for interaction with each other to generate social capitals in term of friendliness and openness, hospitality and kindness, care, cooperation and support, mutual aid and helpfulness. These social capitals created at each floor will permeate to the immediate upper and lower floors where these neighbours from the 3 floors can meet and interact with each other in the second phase. With each floor interacting with two other floors, these spokes will eventually be strengthened. The final phase is to gather all the neighbours for a block party to complete the interaction process.

Though theoretically, it seems to be a relatively easy exercise on engaging neighbours. In reality, the infusion of neighbourliness is a long and tedious process and it cannot be rushed into in view of the differences in sentiment, attitude, opinion and emotional reaction of different people. Some residents may be cynical about the need to build a strong neighbourhood preferring to adopt the belief that such is politically motivated by the governing party to keep them in power. Some may be skeptical about the need to build social capitals preferring to keep their privacy. Others may view that familiarity may lead to being taken advantage off. There are yet still many other reasons that can stall the effort to build social capitals.

At the grassroots level, the main challenges are time and resources. Each block of flat with 120 units in 11 floors may need 31 floor parties to complete its task. In calendar month, it will take 31 weekends to complete out of 104 Saturdays and Sundays. In addition, the financial resources will also be high as each floor party may cost up to $120 or about $4500 to organise for a block. Monetary aside, if the hub and spoke system can take off to create a softer and warmth society, the intangible benefits will out-weigh the monetary terms. Nonetheless, being practical, financial resources is one of the major considerations to embark on this project besides the time factor.

This morning, 7 Nov 2010, RC Zone 2 led by Mr Douglas Ng, Mr Joseph Seat, Ms Susan Ang, Mr Williamica and uncle Lee Huay Thien organised a floor party at Blk 131 to facilitate residents to reach out to each other. The floor party started at about 10 am with 7 families joining the party. One of the families told me that after more than 20 years, this is her first floor party where she met other neighbours. She commented that the floor party had helped her family to deepen their relationships with their neighbours.        

The gathering on the 6^th floor had been completed. The next step is to follow-up with these residents who have turned up and to exchange information with each other for them to keep in touch with each other. This is one way to build bonding and hopefully in the lift, these neighbours can address each others’ names instead of just a “hello” less their names.

With the “we build, we engage and we bond” works being started at RC Zone 2, we will continue to use such platform to build the Changi Simei society that we desired.

A Recipe for Success…..

Changi Simei, Singapore, 14 Nov 2010

Managing Crisis Behaviour…. As the name suggests, it is about handling the psychological reactions to crises and disasters. To prepare for any possible occurrence at the local level, there are trainings conducted for grassroots volunteers to equip them with the basic knowledge on crisis management.

Together with 12 others grassroots leaders from Changi Simei, I attended the training conducted by Peoples’ Association on 30 Oct 2010. The trainer was Mr Tan Bak Guan, a practising psychologist. The training was beneficial especially for volunteers to understand more about the inner feelings and reactions of people during crisis and how volunteers could administer psychological first aid to help them.  I must qualify that completing the training does not qualify these volunteers as a professional in managing crisis but merely awareness for the volunteers to understand individual’s behaviour which is useful when making the first contact. 

The training comprised both the theoretical and the practical sessions. During the theoretical sharing sessions, besides learning about definitions and phases of a disaster, the infamous “9-11” incident and the collapse of the Hotel New World were screened to aid the understanding of crisis and disasters. The trainer also went through local crisis like the Silk Air MI 186 air crash, the Bukit Ho Swee fire, the Robinson tragedy, the Spyros incident, the sinking of the royal Pacific, the Sembawang shipyard mishap, SIA SQ 006 air crash etc. These disasters are not far from our memories but for the survivals of these incidents and family members of these victims their memories and inner feelings would continue to linger on for years to come. Although we believe that “time is the healing agent” but for these survivals and family members of victims, immediate psychological first aid is required to help them to overcome their griefs.

Besides those survivals and family members of victims, even bystanders who encounters a critical incident or sees a disaster would be affected. Their likely psychological reactions may be through their affective (emotional) response, cognitive (mental) response, biological response and behaviourial response. They may also be in a state of shock, anxiety, guilt, terrified, poor concentration, self-blame, fear of recurrence, fear of losing control, poor sleep, nightmares, poor appetite, social withdrawal, interpersonal stress etc.

All these reactions could possibly trigger psychiatric complications like acute stress reaction, post traumatic stress disorders, depression, anxiety disorders, bereavement, alcohol and substance abuse.  

Helping these affected people may not be easy from my personal experience.  Firstly there is a need to break into their inner-self to draw them out to speak about their feelings. I am trained in counselling but I am not working as a full time counsellor. To maintain my counselling skills, I do volunteer to take cases and follow up till these cases are closed of when my clients have overcome their psychological barriers. One of the cases was tough as this young client who refused to share any thing except uttered the sentence “you didn’t understand”. There was no rapport to relate to each other therefore, the climate of trust and understanding was not presence.

It took me some time to work on creating the rapport. I finally had a break through and my client broke his silence and shared the heavy baggage which he had lugged along for years.  That was in the second session. It was patience and the exhibit of professionalism that finally convinced him that by sharing he could see many positives in the blind areas that he did not see in all these years. I had facilitated some sense of control through goal orientation instead of telling him what to do. After some months, he regained his self-esteem and control over his life. It was a good closing and I had since terminated the counselling session with this young client.

During the training, the volunteers were also taught on the various rapport building tools, effective questioning skills like what questions to ask and what not to ask, how to ask questions, what to say and what not to say. What was important was the sharing on Do and Don’t when helping victims or family members. We were also informed about the ethical standard when helping others.

Of the ethical standard like confidentiality, accountability, dual relationships, setting boundaries, transference and self-disclosure, I would rank setting boundaries, dual relationships and transference as some thing volunteers would need to be more aware of. I have heard of volunteers in the process of helping others get into trouble when they attempt to blend roles that do not mix well. This graduation erosion of boundaries can lead to very problematic multiple relationships that bring harm to clients and the volunteers with both parties knowing it. This is the slippery slope phenomenon where certain actions will inevitably lead to a progressive deterioration of ethical behaviour. Once the boundary is set right, transference and dual relationships would be neutralised.

I liked the practical part of the course where some volunteers played their roles in a scenario, some administering psychological first aid while the remainder observed and provide feedback on role play and the psychological first aid being applied. I had volunteered to lead a team to provide psychological first aid in an unlicensed money lender and the vandalism of units along the common corridor of a block. The situation involved three families and the atmosphere was tense. 

During the debrief, the various role players spoke about the feelings during their role play vis-à-vis the mediation effort by my team of volunteers who was to provide the psychological first aid. Through the debrief, we learnt about how a wrong sentence or a single word may inflame emotions. We also learnt about offering apology if mistakes were made and to move on. As part of learning process, I had also shared my experience in dealing with a couple of incidents in my grassroots works. The sharing is what collective learning is about so that we don’t learn from zero based.

At the end of the training, personally I have benefited as I have the opportunity to revise the theories which I have learned years ago. It was refreshing from the grassroots perspective.

From Fragmentation to Integration….building learning communities in Changi Simei

Changi Simei, Singapore,  10 Nov 2010

For two weekends on 23 and 24 Oct 2010, 26 grassroots leaders of Changi Simei gathered at our community club to continue with our learning journey.  The 26 of us came from different background, different set of experience and skills, different age etc. But we kept our focus, learn and share with fellow grassroots during the class.   

I was among the 26 of them attending the Certificate in Grassroots Leadership for Chairmen/Vice-Chairmen although I have held the grassroots leadership position for the last 8 years. The course aims to equip grassroots leaders with higher leadership skills to facilitate the grassroots organisations to achieve PA’s mission. I thought the course also gave clearer clarity on the purpose and vision of grassroots organisations. If anything else that I have learned in the two days, I thought the relationships between the 26 of us had deepened. We became closer to build our community as we shared many of our aspirations for the community. Having noted the deepen relationships as a group or community, individual relationships may still go awry if not manage sensitively. A mere word can unravel the good relations of the past.     

Although in theory, I have gone beyond the learning curve in view of my current senior leadership position in the Citizens’ Consultative Committee. Nonetheless, attending the course provided me with a different perspective through the sharing and thoughts from fellow grassroots leaders during class presentation. Therefore, the Chinese saying of 活到老 学到老, in simple English, “learning has no age barrier and no boundary, you will continue to learn till breathing the last” holds truth.

Attending the course which was modeled in the framework of Learning Organisation was familiar to me as I attended one-year training on Learning Organisation under Dr Daniel Kim and Dr Diane Cory. Then, we had to complete our almost 42 weekly assignments on time in a 52 weeks year and we managed to keep up with the strict regimen of Dr Daniel Kim. I had to read many books on learning organisations in one year than I had combined them for the last 5 years. One of the book was The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge

A couple of concepts taught during the course were within my knowledge but the experience of learning again was different. Similarly, I have different understanding and experience each time I read the Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge. Perhaps, this is what many gurus termed as self-internalisation.     

During the course, I thought the Core Theory of Success served as a good platform for grassroots leaders to develop their full potentials. This is possible when relationships among each other are cordial instead of confrontational. A poor relationship will usually hinder progress. With good relationships to start with, people are more willing to share and learn from each other. This will increase the quality of thoughts and challenges are mitigated before putting these thoughts into action. Even during action, there may be conflicts arising from the people but with the good relationships, conflicts can be mitigated and resolve easily and therefore the assurance of quality results. A new cycle will begin and the good relationships will be reinforced again and again. This is where strong organisations differentiate from weak organisations.

The definition of vision was useful as it allows grassroots leaders to understand the vision. Vision is the desired outcome of where we want to go from here. Without vision, we are at NO WHERE. On the contrary, with a clear vision, we are NOW HERE and ready to forge ahead. The mere shifting of the alphabet “W” makes a great difference in “no where and now here” which focus on what we want desired to achieve.

Though the course did not cover on Left Hand Column, I thought it was an important topic to create awareness on positive and negative conversations or the way we write emails. I have noticed that many of our conversations or emails are often subjected to the left hand column thoughts which are likely to be of accusatory or judgmental in nature. Such conversations or emails breed unhappiness detrimental to the working relationship. Instead of “You Call the Shot”, I am sure there is a better sentence to express the unhappiness.

The Ladder of Inference was another great tool to understand how our mental models can influence the way we view reality. We make leaps up the ladder from data to values and assumptions. We then operate on those assumptions as if they are reality. There is nothing inherently wrong about drawing inferences and conclusions from the events we observe. In fact, it is impossible for us to see and absorb everything, therefore we constantly select a narrow slice of life to focus on. This narrow slice of life may affect our judgment subconsciously and it may result in conflicts with others. Even a simple one syllable word can be misconstrued in its meaning with damaging result in individual relationships. Though in theory, the concept of the Ladder of Inference is easy to grasp with and the concept makes sense but in practice, the internalisation and mastery of this concept need patience, a cool and a rationale mind to digest the data gathered before making assumptions, jumping to conclusions with a distorted belief.

We did have fun during the two days of training. The sharing sessions by the various grassroots leaders gave insights on their thinking behind their thought, the learning games provided learning points on communications, leaderships, belief and more importantly, it also served as our cohesion exercises that deepen our relationships.

 At the end of two days, we graduated from the course knowing that we were more awareness of what is expected of being a leader in relation to the grassroots organisations through the collective power of learning. Though I may have known the contents of the various tools and methods taught during the two days but sitting side by side with fellow grassroots gave me a different experience in my learning journey.

Recognising the Contributions of Grassroots Leaders

Changi Simei, Singapore, 7 Nov 2010

The NDA was established in 1962 as a means of recognising the excellent contributions of Singaporeans and even non Singaporeans in their service to the nation. I remembered that many foreign rescuers were honoured for their courage and bravery in risking their lives to save victims who were trapped in the rubbles in the aftermath of the collapse of Hotel New World. Then in 1962, there were few medals. Through the years, several other awards were included and the Star of Temasek being the highest level of award and the lowest being the Long Service Award.

On 9 August 2010, the list of National Day Award (NDA) recipients was released in the Straits Times. There were 3192 recipients in 20 awards categories. Congratulations to all the recipients.

Among the list of recipients were Mr Madhavan Sreenivasan and Mr Steven Lau Puay Yeong.  Both are serving grassroots leaders in Changi Simei who have distinguished themselves in serving the people. They were awarded the Public Service Medals.

Mr Sreenivasan is the current Chairman of Indian Activity Executive Committee. His committee is charged with the responsibility to organise educational, cultural, social, recreational and sporting activities to promote mutual respect and harmonious relations between Indians and the other communities. The IAEC works closely with other grassroots organizations to open up opportunities for Indians and other Singaporeans to interact and build mutual understanding. Besides being active in IAEC, Mr Sreenivasan is also an active member in the Indian Activity Executive Committees council or Narpani Pearavai. The council acts as a catalyst enabling Indian Singaporeans to contribute positively as active citizens. Since Mr Sreenivasan came on board the IAEC, the committee has been very active to promote its activities in collaboration with other grassroots organizations.

Mr Steven Lau (in red polo-T) is the Chairman of Sunbird-Apollo Neighbourhood Committee (NC). The NC is tasked to encourage active citizenry and foster stronger community bonds through promoting neighhourliness, harmony and cohesiveness among residents within private housing estates. The NC works with various government agencies to improve the physical environmental needs and aspirations of residents. Through the efforts of the NC in rallying the residents, many residents turned out for the NC activities like the lantern festivals, night tours etc. The NC also put forth proposals to enhance the physical environment of the estate.    

What are Public Service Medal and Public Service Star?

Public Service Medal or Pingat Bakti Masyarajat or PBM in short was instituted in 1973. The medal is awarded to any person who has rendered commendable public service or who has contributed in the field of arts, sports, sciences, business, labour movement, community services etc. Recipients are entitled to use PBM after their names.

Public Service Star or Bintang Bakti Masyarakat or BBM was created in 1963 to recognise any person who has rendered valuable public service to the people of Singapore or who distinguished themselves in the field of arts, sports, sciences, business, labour movement. In addition, for those who make significant contributions after being awared the BBM earlier can be awarded with a Bar. Recipients are entitled to use BBM after their names.  

The NDA has stringent criteria and elaborate system of assessment before the list of recipients is sent to the cabinet for clearance and to the President for final approval. The criteria for each category of award vary from award to award. For PBM and BBM, grassroots leaders must also satisfy the minimum time in service before they are deemed to be eligible to be nominated. As the award is one of highest level of recognitions by the state, PBM and BBMs are awarded to grassroots leaders who have made significant contributions to the society in the areas of community engagements.

Since helming the Citizens Consultative Committee in 2002, I have attended every investiture ceremony in the month of November each year. During the investiture ceremony, the President hands out the medals to the recipients witness by members of the cabinet, Members of Parliament, senior public service officials, representatives from the business associations etc. Award recipients also invited 2 of their immediate family members to witness the investiture ceremony. I am always happy to attend the investiture ceremony to support my grassroots leaders who are award recipients.

This evening, I was at the NUS Cultural Centre to witness another investiture ceremony. I left my home at about 5.30 pm and drive along ECP to NUS Cultural Centre. The traffic was smooth and by 6 pm, I was at NUS. Security was very tight with armed policemen manning check points and Gurkha Police securing important accesses to the NUS cultural Centre. I felt very safe with so many level of security checks.

When Minister Mentor Mr Lee Kuan Yew arrived at the hall, there was a loud applause to acknowledge his presence. His entry was followed closely by SM, Mr Goh Chok Tong and our Prime Minister, Mr Lee Hsien Loong. The audience seated also welcomed them through applauses. The investiture ceremony started at 7 pm with the arrival of our President. The ceremony began shortly after the singing of our National Anthem. Like previous years, the order of presentation was based on the protocol of the medals.

This year Public Orator was the Honourable Justice Steven Chong. The Public Orator read out the citations of the higher protocol medal like the Distinguished Service Order won by Mr Tan Gee Paw, Chairman of PUB. The citations continued for recipients of the Meritorious Service Medal where there were 8 recipients. After the Meritorious Service Medal, the Public Service Star (Bar) and Public Service Star were next up for citations. There were 5 recipients from the grassroots organisations for the Public Service Star (Bar) and 7 other individuals who have made contributions to the society. There were 35 grassroots leaders and 11 other individuals receiving their Public Service Star from the President. 

After the presentation of these higher protocol medals, the Public Orator took his leave as there was no citations to be read for Public Administration Medal followed by the Public Service Medal (PBM).  Other medals like the Commendation Medal, Efficiency Medal and the Long Service Medal will be presented by the respective ministries. 

The formal presentation ceremony ended at 8.30 pm. Our President would have to stand for that amount of time. It was not easy for our president.

During reception, I met up Sreenivasan and Steven Lau for a group photo as our Adviser, Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo was out of town on an official business. It was a free and easy reception. There were buffet tables laid out on the ground, 1st and 2nd floors. As many would prefer to mingle at the ground floor, the two upper floors were not crowded thus it made sense to join the reception at the upper floors.

On the way home, the traffic police provided the escort for the president’s motorcade. I was pulled to the side by the traffic police on Benjamin Sheares Bridge  because I was travelling on the extreme left lane. The act of stopping my vehicle travelling at 70 kph in a raining day with poor visibility posed safety issue  to the traffic policeman and I. What if I was not alert, I would have collided with the traffic policeman endangering his life and mine. I didn’t understand the rationale to pull me aside in a 4 lanes expressway. Nonetheless, all went well during my journey home.

For M Sreenivasan and Steven Lau…Congratulations, for your hard work in the service of others.

Celebrating Deepavali through Learning Cultures, Practices and Belief…our own way

Changi Simei, Singapore, 3 Nov 2010

For many years, I have not ventured to “Little India” for my shopping needs not even step into Mustafa. Though I have heard about “everything you want is there, the cheap and good” and the 24/7 business day for shopping convenience, these do not generate interest in me. Firstly, my needs can be satisfied easily at the neighbourhood stores at Blk 248 and at Fairprice at East Point Mall. Though they are not 24/7, the ranges of products are comprehensive to meet the local demands with travelling beyond the estate.

Nonetheless, with my colleagues, we decided to visit “Little India” to celebrate Deepavali through the understanding of culture, traditions and practices of my Indian friends and Hinduism, one of the oldest living religion in the world and perhaps even older than the 5000 yrs of Chinese Civilisations.

We arrived at Serangoon Road in the early morning. We met at City Square Mall, a shopping mall near to Farrer Park MRT. My Indian colleague acted as our tour guide, otherwise I would be merely walking along Serangoon Road without learning anything.

Why do Hindu women wear the red dot on their foreheads? A simple question but none of us is wiser. I found out that not only women, but men also wear a dot also known as pottu on their foreheads indicating a third eye, a spiritual sight which Hindus seek to awaken through yoga. The pottu is a very auspicious symbol, reminding those who ear it of their spiritual heritage and ideals wherever they may be. I also found out that an unmarried girl wears a black dot while those who are married wear a red dot. Today, only the most traditional men observe this wearing of dot but women continue to follow these tradition.

We commenced our educational tour along Serangoon Road. We passed by Mustafa but we did not go into the building. We also passed by Owen Road where Hotel New World once stood in 1986 before its collapse killing 33 people. Along the way, I saw a traditional shop grinding rice to make rice flour. I was told that the shop also produced curry powder. Though the shop don’t seem to be very high-tech, nonetheless, it delivers the needs of its customers to perfection. There are not many of these shops still in business as I don’t find it in mass presence even along Serangoon Road.

Our next stop was the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple. My colleague told me that Hindus offer their prayer on Friday. No wonder there were many devotees. To go into the temple for prayer, devotees have to cleanse their feet. This is similar Islamic’s practice. I took out my shoe to enter the Hindu Temple which was not my first time. I had some years ago, went to the temple to offer prayer for my grassroots colleague who passed on. Besides us, there were also tourists visiting the temple.

Remember the parrot named Mani, the fortune-teller along Serangoon Road. Well, that was the parrot made famous during the last Football World Cup where Mani predicted winners of different matches. She and the owner was at the stall placed along the five foot way. The other famous predictor was Paul, the famous octopus who had made 100% accurate prediction. Unfortunately Paul died last week.  We left Mani after she picked up a prediction card for a tourist.

We passed by a shop selling Sari. I thought the design of the sari was much updated in today society. Though the sari is a strip of cloth of about 6 metres long and made of materials like cotton, silk or chiffon, it is draped over the body. Some sari are embroidered and that makes fetch a high price. We saw the sari worn by a mannequin costing about $2000. Wow, a steep price but the sari looks fantastic on the mannequin.

I saw a symbol resembling the symbol use in Buddhism and a symbol used by the Nazi Germans in World War 2. Out of curiosity, I asked my colleague only to realise that the symbol is known as swastika. For many centuries, swastika has been an auspicious symbol in India and continues to be in common use. The swastika is considered very holy, and is regularly used to decorate Hindu homes, it is also being used in temples and religious scriptures. The swastika is also a symbol of sun-god Surya which is a representation of all four directions and a symbol of Brahma, the creator. I was also told that Lord Ganesha is also closely associated with the symbol of swastika. The Buddhists also use this symbol though I may not understand its significance in Buddhism.  

Along our journey, I saw many shops selling Jasmine flower garland. I also saw some women wearing jasmine garlands on their hairs. Well, jasmine is used as decorative flowers because of its pleasant fragrance. I thought the smell was sweet and strong which perhaps is good for the brain. Jasmine flowers are widely used in Indian cultures and traditions like in wedding ceremony.     

We finally arrived at the Deepavali bazaar at Campbell Road. As it was at about 11 am, there was no crowd at the bazaar. Good for us as we need not rush with the crowd. I browsed at the various stalls and I noticed that many of the stalls were selling religious artifacts. There were also stalls that sold decorative materials and clothing. As my intention was to learn about Deepavali, I did not make any purchases.

No visit to Little India would be complete without food. We were at the last stop of our visit, the Indian restaurant. At about 11 am, the shop owner performed a cleansing ritual ceremony on Lord Ganesha. The cleansing was very deliberate and the owner will need to clean Lord Ganesha every morning before opening his restaurant.

I know that our Chinese businessmen do pray at the start of the business day seeking blessings from their Gods. During the visit, I was told that the Indian merchants also start the day by offering prayers to their Gods.

In the cleansing ritual, the owner first pours water over Lord Ganesha, an Elephant God. After cleaning it with water, he next poured milk over the statue. He cleaned it with water again and next he pours turmeric onto the statue. After the turmeric, he poured rice flour mixture over the statue. The last cleansing act was the cleansing of the Lord Ganesha with water from the holiest river, River Ganges in India. The owner told me that the water was imported from India for such cleansing ritual. After the ritual, the Lord Ganesha statue was dressed up and we were told that we could touch the Lord Ganesha for luck or to seek the Lord to answer to our prayers.

After the cleansing ritual, we proceed to the restaurant for our lunch. My lunch is seen in the photograph. After lunch, we had fun through games and quizzes on what we had learned during our journey along Serangoon Road. That was our own way of celebrating Deepavali.

Deepavali marks the beginning of the Hindu New Year. Deepavali is known as the festival of lights and the celebration of victory of the goodness over evil ie light over darkness. Well, there is a celebration in my estate on the eve of Deepavali with pyrotechnics and lights. I will be joining them for the fun.

Happy Deepavali to my Hindu friends.