Welcome Address by Dr Amy Khor, Chairman, REACH, at the Launch of Junior REACH Ambassadors Programme cum Student Forum at Hai Sing Catholic School on 20 February 2008, 10.00am
Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports and Second Minister for Information, Communications and The Arts
Ladies and Gentlemen
And Students
1 Good morning, and a warm welcome to the launch of the Junior REACH Ambassadors programme. I am happy to see so many students with us this morning, and I look forward to an exciting and lively exchange later.
Providing the engagement platforms
2 When we revamped the former Feedback Unit into REACH in October 2006, one of the key goals identified was, as our acronym suggests, to reach out to a wider swathe of the population. Since then we have been proactively engaging Singaporeans to hear their views and concerns.
3 To facilitate greater outreach and engagement, REACH launched several new feedback channels such as SMS and web chats as well as dialogues in the heartlands. These initiatives have resulted in a 40% rise in the total number of feedback received. The number of Policy Forum members also increased by more than 1,000 to some 8,500 members
Important to engage all segments of the population
4 We hope to achieve even greater outreach and raise the level of public engagement on national policy and issues by identifying and reaching out to different groups of the population. In business parlance, we practice market segmentation. For example, REACH launched the Policy Study Workgroups (PSWs) last year, an initiative that aims to promote an active citizenry through citizen participation and involvement in policy making among professionals of various disciplines.
Focus on youth
5 The launch of the Junior REACH Ambassadors programme today marks another important milestone for REACH as we seek to reach out more effectively to yet another segment of the population – the youths who – if you pardon the cliché -- are the leaders of our next generation. It is imperative that we start engaging the nation's young people early, so that they know they too have a part to play in shaping the nation’s future.
6 We need to reach out to them and let them know that we want to engage them. We want to plant this seed of curiosity, water it into interest, nurture this interest into involvement, and harvest from this involvement the fruit of peer influence in ever widening circles.
Our objective of promoting youth engagement
7 We hope to be able to encourage and cultivate a culture of feedback and participative citizenry among our youth through this programme.
8 Our young Ambassadors will be role models of youth engagement to their friends and their peers, and will encourage them to actively participate in shaping and building the Singapore of tomorrow. This programme could also serve as a platform to encourage our youths to contribute to the nation through their personal efforts and capabilities in areas that they are concerned with.
9 Recently, we can see the power of peer influence among youths as they rallied together to support our bid for the Youth Olympics. All of us are of course waiting with abated breath for the results of our YOG bid tomorrow.
10 REACH, together with the schools, will nurture the JRAs through our training and activities. We want to equip and empower our JRAs with a good appreciation of the policy making process and the skills to conduct their own feedback exercises among their peers on topics that they are passionate about.
11 It is my sincere hope that our Junior Ambassadors will find the process a fruitful one, and graduate from the programme as mature individuals with a keen sense of responsibility and interest in what is happening around him or her.
12 On behalf of REACH, I would like to express our appreciation to the schools for their invaluable support of this programme.
13 We are able to launch this programme today only because these schools believe in the programme, and have in many instances and without the slightest hesitation whatsoever, given their full and enthusiastic support to the programme.
14 As this is an entirely new initiative with no precedent to guide us, REACH together with the pioneer batch of the JRAs and the participating schools will need to explore and experiment on the outreach projects to ensure that the students find this programme useful and meaningful and at the same time achieve REACH’s aim of engaging youths.
15 I am very pleased with the enthusiasm and positive reactions I am getting from the JRAs in my interaction with them. Many say that they are excited about the initiative and one JRA in fact asked how we are going to get other schools to join the bandwagon. My answer to the JRA was that it really depends on her! You are now the torchbearers to fan the flames of what I hope would be a successful movement.
16 And finally, my deepest gratitude to Minister Dr Vivian Balakrishnan for gracing this event and launching the programme. Thank you, Minister.
17 Now, it is my pleasure to invite Minister to deliver his address.
18 Minister, please.