SINGAPORE - Residents should step out of their flats and
interact with their neighbours, and take part in community
activities to build friendships, urged Minister of State (National
Development) Tan Chuan-Jin.
As the Housing and Development Board (HDB) kicked off the first
event in its inaugural Community Week yesterday, Mr Tan said
forging community cohesion is a key priority of the HDB.
"Homes are really about the community. It is about family, it is
about the cohesion, the friendship, the relationships that exist
between neighbours, between neighbours on the same floor, floor to
floor, block to block," he said.
"And that is something that HDB is interested in. It is not just
about the brick and mortar of building buildings."
Mr Tan was speaking at the launch of Heartland Youthoria!, an
exhibition to celebrate and encourage youth involvement in housing
estates.
A section of the exhibition allows youths to express how they feel
about their housing estates. This includes a wall of drawings
depicting good deeds performed by neighbours and Lego models of
what students think is their ideal community.
Another section allows students to make a pledge on how they plan
to improve their community.
Heartland Youthoria! kickstarts the Community Week by the HDB - a
week-long initiative to build better ties between neighbours and
build stronger communities.
Heartlanders can look forward to a line-up of activities, including
a student race across five HDB towns and the first vertical walk in
an HDB estate.
Community Week is part of the overall strategy of the HDB's
Community Relations Group, which was formed in 2009 to look into
building community ties in the heartlands.
A key initiative by the group has been the launch of the Heartland
Ambassador Programme, where students are trained to spread the word
on community living and being good neighbours.
To date, some 600 students have been trained as ambassadors.
-- TODAY
