SM Lee Hsien Loong at the Yellow Ribbon Prison Run 2024

Good morning everybody.

Congratulations to the Yellow Ribbon Project on your 20th birthday. I participated in one earlier Yellow Ribbon Walk and Run many years ago in 2007, and I am very happy to be back again this time to see so many more people participating and so many more activities for this annual walk and run.

We are very grateful to the Yellow Ribbon Project and all the volunteers, participants, sponsors and organisers for working so hard, day in, day out, year in, year out, on this very worthy mission. We take law and order very seriously in Singapore. We take crime and punishment also seriously in Singapore, but when somebody is incarcerated in Singapore, our objective is not just punishment, but also reform and rehabilitation and to help walk the journey with you, to bring you back onto the straight and narrow and to put your life back in order. And the Yellow Ribbon Project does a lot of good work doing this, it is not just organisational work. It is also heart work - you have to feel for the persons, you have to help him walk his journey, help him understand which way to go and give him an extra hand on the way there. Because it is not easy, but we have made progress. We have brought down our recidivism rates. We have had people who have gone through this journey see the light and pay it forward and participate in helping others to make good, and I hope that we can continue doing this work for many years to come.

So, thank you very much. Our aim this year is a 'Nation Beyond 2nd Chances', and that is the goal, not just of those of us here today, but for all of us in Singapore.

Thank you, and a very good morning to all of you.