SINGAPORE: President Tony Tan Keng Yam has urged
more Singaporeans to give their time, expertise and financial
resources to the community. He is also encouraged by the all-time
high of 23 per cent of the population, currently involved in
volunteer work.
President Tan's comments came after his first visit to the National
Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC) on Friday. He had a
closed-door briefing where he was also updated on the state of
giving in Singapore.
President Tan also closed this year's Social Leadership Singapore
(SLS) course - which aims to develop a network of non-profit
leaders.
Into its third year, the six-to-eight month course aims to develop
non-profit leaders and to ignite the problem-solving process in the
community. This year saw 45 participants from the people, private
and public sectors attending.
Among the issues raised this year - how the social sector can
better partner the government and the private sector to address
social issues.
Professor Dean Williams, the developer of the course, said the
social sector gives Singaporeans the chance to get more
involved.
Prof Williams said: "By virtue of the feedback that's coming from
recent elections and what have you, it's obvious in many ways that
people want to participate in the social and political life of the
country, in perhaps ways they haven't before for various
reasons.
"The social sector affords that opportunity for people to (instead
of complaining to the government,) to come, get involved in finding
out what the nature of the problem is, and fixing that problem. It
actually puts the work of generating strong social capital for the
country on the laps of citizens, which is very important."
At his opening address to the parliament last week, President Tony
Tan had urged Singaporeans to participate actively in the
community. The NVPC also acknowledged that with the growing
complexity of needs in Singapore, more sustained help is
needed.
Laurence Lien, Chief Executive Officer of the NVPC, said: "The
challenges are growing so we want more continued volunteerism, not
just people coming one-off to do activities, but to sustain that
volunteerism. The needs today are more complex and we are
addressing issues that were not there 40 years ago, whether it's
ageing population, climate change and so on. So we need more people
involved."
-CNA/ac
