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.

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.

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.

Volunteerism

Changi Simei, Singapore, 20 Oct 2010

The word “volunteerism” means different thing to different. Some see it as being “busy body”, some define it as “an opportunity to accumulate more co-circular points or to fill their resumes”. There are those who do not even care as there is always “some body” out there to do the job.

How many of us will step forward to offer our time or talents for a charitable or worthwhile cause and without looking for some perks, benefits etc at some point of time?

Fortunately, volunteerism is not dead in Singapore. Though our numbers of volunteers may not be as big as those in the USA, nonetheless, at the grassroots level which I am familiar with, there are more than 30,000 volunteers. This is a respectable numbers. However, volunteerism is not about numbers. It is about stepping forward to contribute to important causes through our innate altruistic feelings.

At Changi Simei, many of our residents do step forward to volunteer as grassroots leaders. They assume many positions of leaderships as we have many standing committees. We firmly believe in the many helping hands approach and every grassroots leader has the potential to contribute to the solution of societal issues.

Volunteering is also about emotional satisfaction which money cannot buy. It is priceless. Apart from emotional satisfaction, there are other practical benefits like making new friends. I dare to say that I have made many friends while serving in the grassroots organisations. These friends enhance my personal and psychological well being. Before I volunteer as a grassroots leaders, I hardly know get to know my neighbours in depth. It is merely greetings and saying “hi”.

As volunteers, I have picked up along the way some soft skills on people management and socialisation skill. Dealing with people is a challenge and through the constant practices in the course of grassroots works, I can sharpen these skills and become a better person.

Sharpening of soft skill is one aspect of personal development. Thinking and generating new ideas engages the mind. This alone is valuable as a thinking mind is a healthy mind. An idle mind spells trouble and soon Dementia and Parkinson Disease will set in to take control of the mind. For both medical conditions, they have no boundary and it can affect every one from the rich to the poor, the intellect to those with no formal education. I have seen elderly grassroots leaders who still possess a strong presence and alert mind.   

In the last two years, many younger and professionals have been recruited into the grassroots organisations in Changi Simei and low attrition rate and thus growth in grassroots members. The challenge is how to develop the feeling of feeling good in voluntary works. Therefore, I have adopted the approach of celebrating success to recognise the contributions of all our grassroots leaders. Recognising achievements is one approach and when complementing it with an engagement strategy will create affinity among the grassroots leaders.

At Changi Simei, recently, I form another standing committee called the Integration and Naturalisation Committee to help in the engagement of new citizens. The role is to integrate them into our local community. The standing committee comprises of new citizens and true bred Singaporeans. The standing committee met on last Sunday and will meet again to map out a new strategy to engage the new citizens.

The spirit of volunteerism is growing and I hope that in years to come, the numbers of volunteers will increase to make our society filled with compassion and warm.

We Are Together……as a team

Changi Simei, Singapore, 17 Oct 2010 

It was almost two years on 19 Oct 2008 at Singapore Parliament House, volunteer grassroots leaders were formally appointed for a new two years term by our adviser, Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo, Member of Parliament for East Coast Group Representation Constituency. That new term took effect from 1 Oct 2008 to 30 Sep 2010. With the ever ticking clock of moving forward, we have completed our two years term. 

We would not have came this far in Changi Simei if not for our volunteer grassroots leaders, their ideas and their commitment albeit their busy schedules to drive the various initiatives. It is through their hard work and the spirit that they have embraced like dynamism, determination, confidence, unity and compassion that see us delivering projects as a team. In a sense, the strong commitment of grassroots leaders is the core of our grassroots organisation. It is the ordinary grassroots leaders who reached out and engaged residents to find out what residents think, how residents feel and what their concerns are. The feedback from these grassroots leaders sharpens the CCC’s understanding of residents’ sentiments and concerns. It thus helps the CCC to focus on these issues to build the community in Changi Simei.

On 14 Oct 2010, to thank our grassroots leaders who embody the spirit of each doing their part and contributing in their areas of expertise and skills to build Changi Simei as our home, the CCC invited them to an appreciation dinner. The dinner in its original form cannot compensate the contributions of these volunteer grassroots leaders. Nevertheless, the appreciation dinner is our way to express our appreciation to them for committing their time and effort to serve on the various grassroots organisations. Personal invitations were sent to invite all our grassroots leaders.

Though it was a Thursday night, 230 grassroots leaders attended the appreciation dinner. Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo was in attendance to interact with our grassroots leaders. Although the appreciation dinner was simple, it was the personal touch and sincerity to thank them that count towards the success of the appreciation dinner. Grassroots leaders who attended enjoyed the night and company of other grassroots leaders. The spirit of Changi Simei was in the air.

During the dinner, Chairman CCC gave an account on the works being delivered by our grassroots leaders which called for celebrations. In essence, Chairman touched on two strategic objectives which have provided a framework to carry out our grassroots works and the two strategic objectives will remain as our focus in the next two years.  

The first is community building which will remain the focus of the new term CCC and its grassroots leaders. Community building is about creating common space for residents of various races, backgrounds and age to meet, interact to become friends, cultivate a sense of mutual responsibilities as well as a warm feeling towards each others. This strategic objective is a continuing process that will never end. The day it ends spells “doom” for our community. There are examples of such doomed communities for example the genocide in Rwanda or the Balkcan’s Conflict which took place not too long ago. Nearer home, our neighbouring countries are mired in racial and religious tensions instead of nation building. We cannot and will never allow such tensions to take place in our country.   

We have made progress in our society and it has also changed in tandem with our vibrant economy. With rising incomes, the way we engage our residents will change. To continue building the community, we too need to adapt to the new generation with new thinking. The successful formula in the past may not work in current society without adaptation. Therefore, the new term CCC and all its grassroots leaders will have to review and examine the “how” to create new common space to meet the needs of the new generation. We can only understand their needs only when we understand what they are thinking about. Therefore, in the process of engaging these new generations, we also need to draw them into the community to understand them better. Therefore, leadership renewal cannot be ignored.

The second objective is to enhance the infrastructure and the living environment in Changi Simei to complement the engagement process. With limited fund available, there is always the challenge of managing demands which exceeds supplies. The “wants” of residents are many and fulfilling them is a matter of prioritisation if their “wants” are practical and beneficial to residents at large. There are also wants that cannot be fulfilled in view of their practicability, high costs, those with personal agenda or those contravening public policies and governance. Nevertheless, the grassroots leaders will need to engage to these residents even though these residents may be upset, refused to understand or calling grassroots leaders’ names. As long as we are doing the right thing, we shall not fear about what these “upset” residents think about us. We live our own lives while they live theirs. In the next two years, we need to initiate more infrastructural works to improve our local environment.

Besides celebrating our successes in our grassroots works, the appreciation dinner also served as an occasion for Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo and Chairman CCC to acknowledge the contributions of grassroots leaders who are retiring and stepping down as part of the leadership renewal process. Leadership renewal is a continuous process without any end point otherwise, at some point in time, there will be a vacuum in its leadership which the CCC cannot ill-afford.  In this new term of office, the CCC has inducted many young professionals into the various grassroots organisations. These young professionals had attended the tea sessions conducted by the CCC as part of its sharing effort on the works of grassroots organisations. It is hoped that more young professionals will volunteer themselves to serve the community after the sharing session. The CCC’s leadership is confident that its leadership renewal is on the right track for the good of Changi Simei.

The CCC also took the opportunity to allow the formal appointment of grassroots leaders in the next term of office. Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo, formally presented the certificate of appointment to the grassroots leaders. As grassroots leaders, we will continue to serve with our passions and from our hearts.

Reaching Out….to build a strong community

Changi Simei, Singapore, 9 Oct 2010

“Reaching Out”….. just two simple words. But these two simple words carry a lot more meanings especially in our grassroots works. My own interpretation is “reaching out” is a proactive approach to contact, connect with and communicate to bring people together so that they live and  work together as friends in a community. The larger intent is to build our social capital through a community with strong bonding and a resilient community in time of crisis. It is a huge mission which alone can achieve little. Fortunately, there are many like-minded and passionate people who voluntarily step forward to be counted as a team to facilitate the mission of building social capital for the good of our society at large.

These three words “contact, connect and communicate” are complemented by one word. This one word is a buzz word frequently used word by almost everyone from political leaders to business leaders to managers to teachers to supervisor etc …. “to engage”. Engagement is about continuous contact to evoke the feeling of being actively involved and the feeling of ownership of anything the person being engaged is interested in. Engagement is therefore a must have ingredient for any successful effort to build social capital. Nonetheless, engagement will not just happen without the physical effort to reach out first. In a sense, these words are synonymous to each other and their combinations deliver the desired outcomes that we want.

Many people including grassroots leaders may interpret “Reaching Out” as greeting each other or perhaps knowing each other. Other than saying “Hello” and they don’t go beyond. I will not be surprised that many may greet each other every morning in the lifts, at the void deck etc but how many actually can address each other by names? Therefore, reaching out is more than initial contact but a series of continuous actions to create space for interaction before any long term relationships and strong bonds can be built. . 

In order to reach out, there is a need to invest in time. Without the investment in time, the “breaking-in” phase which requires physical contact will be a challenge. The battle is half won when residents open up to the grassroots leader if residents assess them to be sincere and reliable. Once this phase is achieved, the second phase of “breaking-through” becomes easy as residents will become acquaintance as relationships between them improve. The final phase of “breaking-out” is now possible when their relationships deepen through continuous engagements.

Continuous engagement hence plants the seed of success in developing a strong sense of belonging and pride in the community. The three phases seem easy but can only succeed if “time”, a scarce resource of grassroots leaders can be managed well. One other consideration is about being “thick skin” (a local Chinese expression of determination despite of rejections)    even if the initial contact to reach out to residents failed. These are my personal experience in reaching out to residents.

Back in Changi Simei, we organise large-scale programmes like National Day Dinner, National Day live telecast, festive season’s celebrations and respective cultural events to create space for interaction. The various grassroots organisations also organise smaller events like block parties, floor parties, house to house visits, skipping for charity etc to engage residents. These activities may not cater to the interests of individual and therefore, we create social interests groups like sports social groups for table tennis, badminton, brisk walk, detox dance, qiqong, gardening etc for residents to meet regularly to engage one another.

It is through such social gatherings that strong communities are formed. Take for example the brisk walkers at RC Zone 3, it started with few residents 3 years ago, the numbers of these brisk walkers today have increased to a respectable numbers and its numbers is still on the rise. It is not the numbers that matter most. What matter most is that over the years these brisk walkers become acquaintances and though they are not members of the RC, many also volunteer to complement the strengths of their RC members when call upon to support the RC activities. It is through years of cultivation that has resulted in such strong relationship and the RC also has its own recall system to activate these brisk walkers.

Besides these, tea sessions are also being conducted once in every two months by the CCC to engage residents. The objective of the tea sessions is to share and to create awareness on the vision and mission, works and work processes of the grassroots organisations. Though the turnout may not be by the hundreds, the turnout of more than 10 residents in a session fits well into the CCC’s vision of engaging these residents. At times, we also see residents living in other part of Singapore turning up to attend our sessions which we do not turn them away.

It is part of our engagement strategy to create space to build social capital. After the sharing session, one commonly heard remark is “I have living here for many years and I don’t even realise that there are so many activities and so many things have been done by the grassroots organisations”. Such remark is a proxy of our success in our first phase of reaching out to them.   We do follow up and many also decide to join our grassroots organisations as they realise that our works are carried out for the good of the community. Many of these new members are professionals or holding managerial positions and their memberships fit into our leadership renewal process.                            

Perhaps there are other better approaches on reaching out to residents thus prompting Peoples’ Association to organise a “Reaching Out” session at Changi Simei Community Club on 8 Oct 2010 for the South East and South West Districts. Minister Lim Hwee Hua, Minister in Prime Minister Office and 2^nd Minister for Transport chaired the dialogue session. Other Members of Parliament and Adviser, Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo, Mr Chan Soo Sen, Mr Lim Biow Chuan and Mr Sitoh were also present to share their experience in reaching out to residents.

The sharing of practices by other constituencies and the dialogue session were beneficial in term of understanding policies and best practices. In this session, I too also stood up not once but twice to share the approach of reaching out to private condo and landed estates’ residents in Changi Simei and to pose a question on the bureaucratic process of two government agencies which hinder engagements and frustrate the grassroots leaders. These are projects if implemented will benefit the residents enormously but unfortunately they are not on the menu of these agencies. The journey to pursue the two projects would continue although answer given was in general.

I have not expected an answer but at least I have created awareness on the bureaucracy and red tape of government agencies. I am not alone as other members from other districts also shared their views of government agencies. However, I would like to add that not all government agencies are stovepipe agencies. There are others like LTA and SPF who are opened and have been engaging us well. We have worked as a team.

Reaching out is hard work and for the good of the country, we will continue to make reaching out as one of our priority in our grassroots works.