Tony Tan urges more S'poreans to contribute to community
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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 -
As usual the PAP always give command. Singapore is not an army camp! Talk who don't know! Is he showing a good example of what he is asking by taking the lead to do it after he gave his command.
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Talk is cheap these days, peanut cheap.
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where the time n money?
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mebbe tony tan cooks good fishball noodles and intends to setup shop inside istana grounds to visitors free of charge?and then mebbe talk to folks for hours about his days when he was studying at MIT when he was younger.
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...
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i am
by banning ppl in this forum.
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Sleeping no enough....
Contribute ?
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the answer is a flat NO....
until the system fulfils what they promise, then they will see an equal contribution from the people....
take it as a trade in....call then must do?...lets wait for their delivery first...
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as a guy, we have done what national service commands us for the sake of the country....then give all we have to over protected women and thus resolve half of the society's problems which is suppose to be their job....
now what....
enough is enough....
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I have 5 kids!
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Originally posted by Aneslayer:
I have 5 kids!
u hav worked hard for yr country -
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Let's contribute by running for Parliament and the Presidency.
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low earner - high contributor and high earner - low contributor............ honestly i dun know whether our ministers donate to any of the charity or not