My Second Princess Birthday…28 Apr 2013

In 2010, my family celebrated the first birthday of my first granddaughter, Isabelle. Last month, we celebrated another of our granddaughter, Micaela’s one year old birthday at Changi Chalet.

Many guests, my daughter’s friends from the “mama” club and her former classmates, my son-in-law’s colleagues, my wife’s brothers and sisters and their families and my own siblings, nephews and nieces turned out in full force. The one year old birthday party was also a perfect platform for gathering of kins, relatives and friends. We don’t meet often in view of our busy daily schedules or perhaps the lack of occasions to meet. Therefore, any celebration would be an opportunity to gather around the table for kinship, friendships and of course food and drinks. Though I am not a serious “drinker”, for such occasions, I may drink but exercising self-control to remain sober and a responsible individual.

Back to the one year old birthday party. My daughter, Florence, planned for the party since the beginning of 2013. My daughter planned a Hawaiian theme birthday party as she would like to give Micaela an unforgettable birthday. Unforgettable for a one year old? Yes, at least to capture in photographs. She purchased raffia to make hula skirts, made purchases from USA to decorate the chalet into a Hawaii theme which she said cost much less than in Singapore, made and buy goodies for kids in attendance, prepare food and many preparations relating to the Hawaii theme birthday party. Even my youngest daughter pit in to help her to draw two Hawaiian lady in the usual grass skirts. Finally, my youngest daughter drove my car with Florence to Parkway Parade to pump up balloon with helium, my car was full of balloons when they returned to the chalet. All preparations were completed in good time before the guest turned up less the coconut trees which in the plan should be part of the decoration but were not available as we could not simply chopped down coconut trees. So there was no coconut tree but the party went on as planned.

On Micaela, she is adorable and she smiles whether she hears her name is being called. She likes to play and would initiate contact with people near to her by touching them or pulling their clothes. Whenever, people react to her, she would smile or burst into laughter. She is also responsive to people who speak to her and her eyes would focus on the people who play with her. At her age, Micaela is able to make sounds like “papa”, “mama”, “grandpa” and “grandma” and “jie jie”. For a one year girl, making sounds is fast for age. She could even walk few steps on her own without assistance. I could sense from her expression of joy or relief whenever she completed walking a few steps. In the weeks to come, she would be walking perhaps on her own but to my wife, she would still carry her as long as she could. My wife’s philosophy is “children grow up fast and it would be a lost opportunity and they grow up they would not want to be carried” That explained why my wife and I always carry both of them whenever we are out with them. I thought my wife’s philosophy is practical as once they grow up, they would like to have their own privacy. Therefore, treasure the present and seize the opportunity to do what it right and enjoy their company.

These days children are smarter and tech savvy unlike children of my time where we only learned Alphabets in Primary One level but now they would have learnt these alphabets even before they turn 3 or may be earlier. Thanks and no thanks to their “kia su” parents and my daughter is one of them. Micaela is currently enrolled into a learning class…well my daughter’s ideal of education to start first especially Micaela is born in the year of Dragon. During the birthday party, these young toddlers were lined up for a photo shoot and there were 5 “dragon toddlers”. Besides Micaela, I have another “dragon” grand-nephew and niece.

Dragon is a mythical animal which the Chinese believe to be an auspicious animal and anyone born under this Chinese zodiac sign has these traits of power but benevolent, wisdom, strength, luck and longevity. No wonder, whenever it comes to the Dragon year, Singapore would have more babies that other Zodiac years. But the catch is these children would have to compete among their cohort for many things in life to be a phoenix or for the male, a dragon.

Like the one year old birthday celebration for Isabelle, besides the usual food galore, there were BBQ too. Well, my son and his friend became the BBQ chefs preparing food for our guests. There were so much BBQ food leftover and we continue the family’s BBQ later in the evening and continue to the next day when we had BBQ dinner.

I have not written any blog since Dec 2010 and it is difficult to start. In view of Micaela’s birthday party, my wife put in this request….write a blog for Micaela. Her rationale was since I had written a blog for Isabelle when she was one year old, I should also blog for Micaela and to blog in wordpress too. Sound reasonable to ensure both my granddaughters read what their grandpa had written about their one year old party when they grow up one day.

I guess with my daughter’s focus, soon both my grand daughters would be equipped with the functional skills of literacy and numeracy. They would be able to read what I have written on my thoughts many years ago including my 98 other blogs in 2010.

I look forward to the day when both my grand daughters could engage her grandmother and I. Perhaps, one day when my wife and I retire for good, we would have more time with them. Our wish is for them to grow up into a responsible citizens contributing to the well being of mankind in whichever way they feel comfortable with.

Generating Social Capital through Sports

Changi Simei, Singapore, 11 Dec 2010

It was a cool morning and by 7.30am, more than 250 residents of various ages and diverse background from Changi Simei RC Zone 1 had gathered at the Basket Ball Court for a sole purpose; to interact through a walk covering 2.5 km distance. One American PR by the name of John was also in the midst of the locals.

For those who are physically agile and fit, the 2.5 km walk was a breeze to them. For the senior folks and younger children, it was a challenge to them. Nonetheless, there were many senior citizens whom had returned to the start point at Blk 106 in quicker time than I had previously thought. These senior folks were those health conscious ones who participated in brisk walks and other forms of daily exercise groups. If all our senior folks are part of any group, I can only conclude that our senior folks will be in a better position in both their mental and physical agility. Unfortunately, they are still many senior folks who prefer to be coped at home rather than coming out to join others. The respective RCs will need to work harder to recruit these senior folks into their folds.

The brisk walk began with an aerobic exercise conducted by Chairman, Changi Simei RC Zone 1’s Senior Citizens Executive Committee.  Ms Jessica Tan our Member of Parliament was with the residents performing the warm up exercise which I thought was suitable for residents of all ages. I was too busy snapping photographs thus I did not join them.

After the warm up exercise, Ms Jessica Tan flagged off and also joined the brisk walk. The residents response to the flagged off was fantastic. Many walked at a faster speed and were physically and mentally fitter than I had thought. The fitter they are, the healthier they are and less likely to fall sick. We may not be aware that being sick consumed resources in term of productivity, money and time and being physically and emotionally uncomfortable. Therefore, there is a need for more physical activities to be organised and more health screening.

The Citizens’ Consultative Committee is working with Changi General Hospital to roll out a programme known as the Eastern Cluster Health Outreach programme. In view of funding, we have set a numbers and on a first come first served basis. The programme includes health screening at an affordable cost. Participants must remain in the programme for 3 years that is going for health screening annually for 3 years. Medical workers will be on hand to provide advices on healthy living base on the results of the screening. There are details that the CCC is still working out. There is also another programme for senior citizens known as the Wellness Programme where senior folks as part of our health programme and at the same time to draw out the seniors from their home for interactive programme. Like the ECHO, details will be released at a later date.

Coming back to the Brisk Walk, residents who completed the walk exchanged their coupons with goodies bags similar to collecting the completion medal after the marathon. Many were happy to receive their goodies bags as that were their achievements. I thought it was a good idea to give to hand over the goodies bags at the end of the walk.

Residents were also treated to a late breakfast after the walk. Many who came with families and friends gathered for their own interaction to enhance family bonding or forging deepened friendships among themselves. They sat in groups, happily eating their breakfasts and some made for their second rounds to eat to their hearts content.

When their tummies were filled, there was a line dance demonstration, games like putting and lucky draw. NEA and police also set up their booths to educate residents on dengue prevention and basic knowledge on crime prevention. Prizes were given to winners who could fulfill the games’ requirements as some form of skills would be required to complete these games.

After over one year of planning, consulting residents and obtaining the necessary support from residents to upgrade the precincts in EC Zone 1 and 2 under the Neighbourhood Renewal Programme, the NRP is now in its final planning stage. The relevant agencies had already given their final approval on the works and designs that we want and the project is now in its tender stage. If all goes well, works on the NRP would commence in the 2^nd Quarter of 2011. Once completed, residents would see a rejuvenated precinct in RC Zone 1 and 2 followed by RC Zone 3 and 4 which our Member of Parliament had announced the upgrading project for these two zones.  

On the rejuvenated precinct, I am also looking towards to the completion of the works for the benefits of residents. After more than 20 years of the estate’s life, it is time to create a new external environment, all thanks to Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo, our Member of Parliament who has taken up the renewal issue with HDB after the announcement of the NRP programme by our Prime Minister during his 2008 National Day Rally. This is just one aspect of renewing the hardware and the other piece is to promote the software through creating vibrant activities to bring all communities together as ONE community. The day will come sooner if all our residents come out to join our programmes.

Senior Citizens Lunch Gathering@Changi Simei RC Zone 3

Changi Simei, Singapore, 11 Dec 2010

Once a month, around 50 to 60 senior citizens of Residents Committee Zone 3 gather at its senior citizens corner to share their lunch together.  This morning on 10 Dec 2010, it was no difference. The only different in the programme was the inclusion of a caroling session by senior citizens of the Moriah Church located a stone throw away from the RC Centre. The choir was invited by Fiona, the chairperson of the RC Senior Citizens Executive Committee.

On my arrival, I noticed these senior folks were eagerly waiting for the programme to start. While waiting, they chit chats with each other and there were smiles on their faces perhaps these senior folks were happy to meet each other again in the once a month lunch gathering.

Before the commencement of the lunch, the caroling added to the festive mood. Those senior folks who could manage English, they too sang along with the carolers. Perhaps, the next time, the carols should include the Mandarin version so that many more senior folks could also participate in the caroling. Nonetheless, it was fun for all.

At the end of the caroling, it was time to celebrate Christmas and the New Year. The organising committee prepared a cake which I understood was available for this lunch gathering only. Being Singaporeans, instead of the traditional log cake, the senior folks preferred a cake which they could divide into equal pieces for the senior folks who were presence. Well, it was not the traditions that matter but the opportunity for bonding created by such lunch gathering. I was asked to lead the cake cutting after the traditional singing of “We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”.    

Finally, it was lunch time, 8 course buffet lunch where these senior folks paid $2 which was a third of the cost for lunch per pax. The lunch was definitely value for money. RC Zone 3 has been funding the senior citizens for many years now to attract these senior citizens to come out of their homes. Coping at home may not be the best option for these senior citizens firstly, they are lonely at home and secondly, meeting others raise their qaulity of life.   

After lunch, the senior folks attended a talk on Dengue as part of the RC educational programme on each playing a small part to eradicate Aedes mosquitoes. Many details like the cycle of  mosquitoes breeding, the areas to look for at home to prevent breeding grounds, the symptoms of identifying dengue victims from normal flu, statistics on the numbers of dengue fever cases in RC Zones etc were shared.

At the end of the sharing session, there were 10 questions quiz with umbrellas to be won for giving the correct answers. The participation was overwhelming. Many senior folks raised their hands at all the same time which made it a challenge for NEA to determine who raised their hands first to stake their right to answer the quiz. What surprised me was these senior folks gave the correct answer the first time. This proved that these senior folks were listening with a strong presence of minds during the sharing session.  

The sharing session was useful to create an awareness of dengue fever. I had also reminded these senior folks on this common myth. There are no breeding grounds in their homes and if there are, mosquitoes in their homes, it is always their neighbours who are the culprits to have bred mosquitoes and these mosquitoes flew into their homes. I had told them that during inspection at their homes conducted by NEA, a compound fine of $300 would be issued if NEA inspectors detected any breeding ground. These senior folks understood the monetary penalties and the appearance in court for repeat offenders after two composite fines. The position taken by NEA on mosquitoes breeding grounds is non-negotiable as a momentarily lapse in dengue prevention can result in grave consequences as seen in 2006. That year saw an outbreak of dengue in Singapore with many deaths cases related to dengue. I had a colleague who was hospitalised for weeks and even undergone a blood transfusion and fortunately he recovered. Therefore, why go through the suffering where prevention taken is better than falling sick?

I thought the monthly lunch gathering was a good way to bond and at the same time creating awareness of the environment around them.

Our Economy Beyond 2010

Changi Simei. Singapore, 8 Dec 2010

Many Singaporeans are unhappy about the influx of foreign talents in our country. Many blame them for their personal misfortune or for our personal non competitiveness in the job market.

Are foreign talents the real cause to our current unhappiness with them? It appears so when I read postings from the internet. Many postings put the blame squarely on these foreign talents for turning “true blue” citizens into second class citizens in our own country. If we can’t find a job, it is the foreign talents who are being favoured by employers because they are cheaper and willing to work 7 days a week. We envy them for not performing national service to defend the country. When our public transport is filled to the brink, we point our finger to foreign talents for traffic congestion on our roads and overcrowded MRT trains. The current hot topic is about housing and many attribute their inability to buy HDB flats to unaffordable prices as foreign talents soak up the market and perhaps speculating in HDB flats. There are more postings in the internet detailing why we should not bring in foreign talents as they are their threats.

It all boils down to our expectations of our life journeys to be smooth without storm and any under current. We ask what our country can do for us instead of what we can do for the country. Such belief gives rise to the “entitlement” mental model and the rejection of foreign talents.

Nonetheless, is there any thing wrong with accepting foreign talents to add value to the Singapore’s economy? I was reading our population replacement ratio which was published recently. It was in ratio of 1.22, hardly enough to even replace their parents. With such ratio, can our economy sustain in the long term? Look at the Japanese’s society which has low population growth and at the same time rejects foreign talents and where are they now? The Japanese’s economy has been in the low since the burst of the bubble in the 80s. The Japanese are still struggling with the economy. Will Singapore be in this state of affairs in the near future when the baby boomers population comes out of their economic productive lives? Though I am not an economist, without a large population base, our economy may not sustain for long. I am worried about the economy in the long term even though I may have long gone under. 

I have read a report that the Chinese government is also attracting foreign talents? Why should they with a more than a billion population? There must be some thing that the Chinese government knows that we don’t.

Just turn to Malaysia, it was reported in the Straits Times on 7 Dec 2010 that the Malaysian government plans new visa to woo foreign talent. It is making it easier for skilled expats to live and work in the country as part of its plans to woo the needed talent to help to spur its economy. The catch is skilled expatriates. Finally, they have woken up to our detriments. They will be our real economic threat in the future as they also aim to be a world class economy.

While other countries openly embrace foreign talents, back home, we apply pressure on our government to limit the inflow of foreign talents. While I agree that we should not take in all sort of foreign talents, nonetheless, we should take in the best and also the unskilled labourers. We need the unskilled workers as they are a critical pillar to the success of our economy at the lower grade jobs where no Singaporeans will want to take up. Imagine one day when all the foreign workers in the conservancy and maintenance industry are gone. Who is going to upkeep the cleanliness in our society, who is going to build our HDB flats and other properties etc?

I am also inclined to agree that foreign talents affect our social fabric and add pressure on our limited infrastructures but without them, our economy will shrink. It is a question of how we balance between the need for them and at the same time looking at our own interest. There are advocates and opposition and I respect their positions. Nevertheless, is a fine line to tread.    

I am pretty sure that our government is aware of the resentments against foreign talents thus adjusting its foreign talents policy. Too much twitching of polices would result in Singapore being unattractive to attract these foreign talents. Therefore, our government will need to do more for Singaporeans to alleviate their fears on the onslaught of foreign talents. But Singaporean will also need to work harder, cultivating good work attitude instead of taking medical leave at the slightest of illness like headaches. We must remember that no one owes us a living except ourselves.

Singapore needs foreign talents as part of our long term strategy to propel our economy to the next plane if not maintaining the current level of prosperity.

 

Working together as One Community

Changi Simei, Singapore, 5 Dec 2010

This morning, I was at Kg Chai Chee Division with fellow Chairmen of various Citizens Consultative Committees in East Coast and Joo Chiat (the super heroes are on the left photo)  welcoming Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, Minister in Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Finance and Transport in her ministerial community visit. I stayed throughout the visit which comprised of 4 stations including the usual dialogue session with minister.  

Back in 2007, Changi Simei hosted the ministerial community visit on 3 Dec 2007. The visiting minister was Mr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports. Then we too had 4 stations, a mass walk, and a visit to Sunbird estate, a carnival at Blk 229 and a dialogue session.

The visit begun at 8.50 am on the arrival of the visiting minister. The minister was greeted by the host Member of Parliament, Mr Lee Yi Shyan, and other MP in East Coast GRC, Professor Jayakumar, Mr Abdullah Tarmugi, Mr Raymond Lim and Ms Jessica Tan.

On her arrival, Minister Lim was led to the carnival ground where together with the other MPs, opened the carnival. This was done by releasing balls in the net above the residents. Once the net is released, the balls came down to the delight of residents who picked them up as souvenirs. It seemed that I was at the wrong place during the launch. Many residents move forward thus shoving me aside. The lesson learn was “don’t get in the way” of what people desired to do. There was also a street soccer demonstration put up by Geylang United, one of the professional soccer clubs in the Singapore League. The netball demonstration, the games stalls, the music played a school marching band, the sound and laughter of residents generated much vibrancy in this station.

We next proceed to Station 2 which was visiting the “Pasar” at Blk 216 ie the wet market and food centre. We walked through the wet market with Minister Lim, Mr Lee Yi Shyan and Ms Jessica Tan greetings stall holders and residents in the market. The stall holders and the grassroots leaders were like buddies. Their relationships was perhaps cemented years ago and deepened during the hawker upgrading project where both grassroots leaders and the stall holders worked together to roll out the project.

I heard an interesting comment during the visit to the food centre “oh, election is coming so they are now visiting”. Such comment may not bring justice to our political leaders and the grassroots leaders who have covered the ground. Such comment reflected the ignorance of this group of senior folks who were dressed smartly. Ministerial Community Visit has been a regular feature for the younger minister. I had the honour to organise one such visit in Dec 2007, one and half year after the general election in early 2006. In reality, I was informed of the intention of such visit about a year ahead of the visit. There have been many ministerial community visits since.

Therefore, the negativity of these uncles and aunties who made the comment was unwarranted and it boiled down to their poor awareness of the environment that they were in. Not seeing is not equivalent of no happening at all. I am sure, MPs and grassroots leaders walk the ground very often to engage residents and for ministerial community visit, it takes place about once a month for younger ministers to get to know other divisions.

The 3^rd station was meaningful in that there was a human touch. At this station, besides the completion ceremony of Lift Upgrading Programme, Re-vitalisation of Shops, Main Upgrading Programme etc. A sketch on barrier free was also played on stage. I liked the scripts on barrier free as with its completion, it would mean hat henceforth, getting from place to place by those on wheel chairs, those who have weak legs, the senior folks, those with heavy marketing items would be able to get around the estate easily without much hassle. All these good comforts in life were paid for by the government but unfortunately, many viewed them as their entitlements instead of privileges that the government shared their budget surpluses with the people.

During the one hour or so dialogue session which was the last station, a couple of questions were raised.

One question dealt with the refund of the wrongful deduction in the new distance fare structure. The resident elaborated on the inconvenience of seeking refund. Nonetheless, the minister clarified that with ground feedback, the procedure for seeking refund had been streamlined. On 18 Dec 2010, just tap the link card at the refund counter, the refund would be automatically credited into the link card. There would not be a need to remember about the trips made as the previous travel history were available in the link card thus using IT to resolve the manual way of refund. That was a piece of good news.

One youth asked about which sector of the industries would be thriving and was referred to a study paper available in the government web site for her reading. I don’t think youth during my time would dare to ask such questions so that she could decide the direction she would taking.

A petition was handed over to the minister. The petition addressed the future of the food centre at Blk 207 after its lease expires on 31 Dec 2014. Many of the stall holders who according to the representative who spoke were fearful of the lost of their livelihoods as they have been operating in the food centre since 1978. I could empathise with these stall holders but there is a shelf life for everything. Even our HDB flats have a 99 lease and when its lease lapses, our HDB flats would be returned to HDB. There are always conflicts in life and it is about conflict management to find an acceptable solution for every players.

Yet another resident passionately requested for additional facilities to be made at the Bedok Polyclinic and wanting to know more about the proposed sport hubs. This resident also suggested ideas to get thing done which was praised by the Minister in her reply.

One senior citizen asked about transferring her Block she lives to Fengshan CC as she reckoned that Fengshan CC is located just a street away from her home. Mrs Lim Hwee Hua and Mr Lee Yi Shyan thanked her for her suggestion. Well, does this matter as electoral boundaries are artificial lines drawn to mark areas of responsibilities for politicians like members of parliament. It is arbitrarily and it is not a state to state boundary that one cannot trespasses without proper immigration document.  The senior citizens could join any of the community centres’ based activities as long as they think that the activities are worth their time and money.

The question that set every one in the hall straight was a question on whether HDB had taken measurs on cooling the housing prices. Minister gave an update on how the measures were derived from a study commissioned by Ministry of National Development and Housing and Development Board. Minister Lim said that the cooling measures are beginning to take effect and HDB is also building another 22,000 units of flat next year to further cool the market. With many flats being put on the market, it may dampen demand but the issue is that many would still prefer flats in the mature estate in view of its convenience. How prices will come down will depend on in the next few months, prospective buyers and sellers view the government cooling measures.

The grassroots leaders in Kg Chai Chee had put up a sterling performance in the organisation of this morning visit. The event went like clockwork. It was certainly an event to be remembered by residents of Kg Chai Chee and the informative session derived during the dialogue with the visiting minister. Besides information, the winners of this ministerial community visit were the residents themselves, who came, saw, interact and bond as one community.

I had also learned some thing about the spirit of Kg Chai Chee. Well done Kg Chai Chee

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.