PM Lawrence Wong at the PA CCMC 60th Anniversary

My Cabinet colleagues and fellow Grassroots Advisers,
Grassroots leaders,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Good evening and I am delighted to join all of you for the 60th Anniversary of the Community Club Management Committees, or CCMCs. Happy 60th year birthday!

I do want to acknowledge the CCMC chairs who came together to organise today's event, all 10 of them from different CCMCs. Let's give them a big round of applause. Thank you very much.

Our CCs

I am sure all of us agree that CCs are an integral and unique feature of Singapore life. They have evolved over the decades in both form and function, as we saw just now from the video and also the exhibition.

The early CCs were simple buildings, humble, practical, quick to build, but they played critical roles in the lives of Singaporeans.

For example, in the 60s, when we had high unemployment, the CCs ran courses for residents to learn vocational skills.

At a time when people were not so educated, Singaporeans could bring letters to the CCs to have them read out loud or have letters written for them.

And as you saw just now, we had farmers back then, and they could bring their livestock for vaccination. Not for COVID-19 vaccination, but for livestock vaccination.

As a newly independent country, CCs in Singapore also helped to strengthen community bonds and foster social integration.

People of different backgrounds, different races, different religions, would all come together and gather at our CCs.

In those days that CCs were the only places in the neighbourhood where you could find a TV. As you saw in the video or in the exhibition, everyone would come to the CC to watch their favourite show, movies or even the news.

On festive occasions, CCs hosted events celebrated by the different ethnic groups, whether it is Hari Raya, Deepavali or Chinese New Year.

The CCs had sports facilities, whether it is a basketball court, badminton court or table tennis courts, and people would come together to play sports together.

That was my memory growing up, of the CC too, because I would go there as a kid, we participated in art drawing competitions.

There were two table tennis courts at the old Marine Parade CC, and my brother and I will bring our table tennis bats, and then we will go and play table tennis (ping pong). And everyone would come, bring their own bats, take turns to play and after one or two points, you would give way for another person to play.

So those were our shared memories of CCs.

Of course, with changes in our society, CCs have also been quick to adjust. Nowadays, Singaporeans have many more options for recreation, and they can also access government services with a click of a mouse.

And so CCs have had to update their offerings and also find new ways to reach out to people, offer a broader range of services and cater to diverse interests, whether it's coding, robotics, 3D animation, even star gazing.

The CCs also upgraded their hardware, and introduced new modern amenities. They have become one-stop service centres in their respective estates. Many are co-located with other public amenities like polyclinics and public libraries, and often house government agencies.

They have also brought in commercial partners like childcare providers to support the diverse needs of Singaporeans. Nowadays, you have CCs in the malls, and some have become large integrated hubs, like here at One Punggol.

In times of crisis, our CCs have also stepped up. We saw this in 2013 during the haze when the CCs became distribution centres to provide masks to low-income Singaporeans. During COVID-19, CCs served as collection points for masks, TraceTogether tokens, ART kits, and later became vaccination centres.

So through the last six decades, our CCs have continued to be a focal point for residents, and they have stayed true to their mission - to bring residents, to bring Singaporeans closer to one another, closer to the government, and to strengthen our community bonds.

It is not surprising therefore that in a recent PA survey, 90% of Singaporeans said that CCs are important providers of community facilities and activities, and places for the community to come together.

This is after six decades of serving, six decades of existence; 90% of Singaporeans still believe that CCs are playing an important community role. So well done to all of you!

Our CCMCs

Of course, we all know that CCs are effective because they are more than just buildings. It is the people behind the CCs that bring them to life, and that is why we are grateful for all of you who serve on our CCMCs.

You are the heartbeat of our CCs, you are the driving force behind the CCs.

In the early days, we appointed grassroots leaders to run the CCs.

Partly because we did not have enough trained staff to run the CCs, so we relied on volunteers. But in fact, it made a lot of sense, because grassroots leaders like yourselves are leaders of the community.

You understand what residents need and how the CCs can best serve the needs of residents.

And that is why it made a lot of sense to have grassroots leaders to come forward, serve on the CCs and figure out how the CCs can find meaningful ways of engaging residents and serving residents.

Of course, over the years, the work of the CCMC expanded, and we have added other areas to the CCMC's work. Now you have Youth Network, Women's Executive Committee, the Senior Citizen's Executive Committee, the Malay and Indian Activity Executive Committees.

All the different acronyms which we are all familiar with. But all of you play key roles in the CCs - curating programming, finding ways to engage residents better.

So this evening, I would like to thank all who have served on the CCMCs, both past and present.

Thank you for your passion, commitment and dedication.

Thank you for making a tangible difference to the lives of countless Singaporeans.

Thank you very much for your service.

Building Our Community Together

It is this spirit of service and contributing to the larger good that enables us to take Singapore forward. We want many more Singaporeans to be involved in contributing to our community, and shaping the future of our nation.

That is why PA has refreshed its mission statement to emphasise the importance of promoting and expanding such ground-up community participation.

For the grassroots movement, it means not just doing events for our residents, but empowering them and energising them to contribute, and do their part to shape the character and tone of our estates.

For the CCMCs, you can also do your part to support this refreshed PA mission. Find ways, for example, to refresh and re-imagine how the CCs can offer and operate. Think of ways where our CCs can be nodes to activate and mobilise the community.

And that means you have to go beyond just renting out rooms, go beyond just having classes in your CCs.

Think about how you can be deliberate in using the space to bring the community together, how you can curate activities that foster greater community ownership and facilitate small resident-led and ground-up initiatives, make the CCs a place where residents can come together, have a greater sense of ownership, and do things for one another.

Our new CCs are already designed with that in mind. So the new CCs have spaces which can be easily used by residents. For example, at Bidadari CC, there are spaces which are used by the Potong Pasir Community Volunteers, not just grassroots leaders, but also the wider network of community volunteers.

And they use these spaces for a whole range of ground-up projects which they do, including a community library.

These are new CCs. They are specially designed like that, but I think we can also do more with our existing CCs.

And this is why PA is launching two initiatives next year to foster community-led innovation and to support more ground-up initiatives.

First, ten CCs will embark on a pilot to develop community innovation spaces. These will provide platforms for residents, volunteers and partners to formulate creative, innovative solutions to local issues.

The spaces can be used for activities like brainstorming sessions and capacity building workshops.

The CCMCs involved in this pilot will form task forces to oversee the project. PA will learn from the pilot and hopefully in time to come, bring more CCs on board.

Our aim is to build a broader community platform where residents and partners can come together to tackle shared challenges.

We hope this will give residents a stake in their own community, a greater sense of ownership and a stronger sense of belonging.

So this is the first project, which is to have a pilot to develop community innovation spaces in our CCs.

Second, PA and the CCMCs will organise a Community Innovation Hackathon next year. This will bring together residents, volunteers, tech experts and others, to identify and analyse local issues, and develop innovative and practical solutions.

And we want the hackathon not just be a competition for ideas but to translate the ideas into action.

And we hope this will catalyse community involvement, and again, foster a stronger sense of community for all of us.

These are two good initiatives. I hope you will support them, and I encourage the CCMCs, all of you, to keep up the good work.

Building Our Shared Future Together

Today, we are celebrating 60 years of the CCMCs.

Next year, we will also have another 60th anniversary.

It is going to be a bigger 60th anniversary next year, because next year we mark 60 years of Singapore's independence.

It will be Singapore's 60th birthday. SG60 is a significant milestone for all of us.

We are working out a series of programmes and events to mark this important occasion. But SG60 should not just be about celebration.

It is and should be an opportunity for all of us to reflect on our shared values, who we are as Singaporeans and what we stand for.

It should be an opportunity for us to renew our commitment to Singapore. To do our part, to build our shared future together.

So we will have more opportunities, more platforms in SG60 next year for Singaporeans to connect with one another from all walks of life, for us to show our care and support for each other, and for everyone to contribute actively, in big ways or small to our community and to our nation.

Of course, all this is core to the work of PA, the CCs, and the CCMCs, so you will naturally be among our key partners for SG60. Of course beyond PA, there will be other organisations - companies, community groups and individuals - who would like to do something for Singapore during our SG60 year.

We welcome your participation too. We want to see more people involved. We want to encourage more ground up-participation.

And we hope that SG60 will enable us to connect with our fellow Singaporeans, to contribute to the community and to strengthen our sense of shared purpose and identity.

All in all, there is much to be grateful for as we approach Singapore 60th Anniversary milestone.

We only have to look around the world to know that we are in an era where there is a lot of complexity, a lot of turbulence.

There are conflicts and violence in some parts of the world. In many countries, there is great uncertainty - societies feeling a sense of division, where trust is not there and people are unable to get along with one another, and so are unable to solve their problems together.

We are very blessed and fortunate that a lot of these negative elements are not here in Singapore.

Are things perfect? Of course, they are not perfect.

There is nothing that is perfect here on Earth.

But the point is we can keep on doing better, and we can keep on improving.

And all of you know that, all of you as grassroots leaders, all of you as members of the CCMCs, recognise that problems are what motivate you to step forward, to solve the problems, to tackle the challenges with your fellow citizens and to make things better.

Instead of a culture where we point the finger and blame others, instead of waiting for others to solve the problems for us, we take ownership, because we are all Singaporeans together, and we strive to make things better for ourselves and our fellow citizens.

So I hope your actions will inspire many more Singaporeans to do the same, and I hope that SG60 will be a time for all of us to renew our commitment to Singapore, and to take our nation forward towards a better and brighter shared future for all.

Thank you very much and happy 60th anniversary to the CCMCs.

Topics: Governance , Multi-racial and multi-religious society , Families and communities