Skunks In White plan ahead to celebrate 50 years of Golden Jubi-LEE

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Singaporeans will not only have a say in how the nation celebrates its Golden Jubilee in 2015, they will also be invited to plan and organise activities.

PM Lee Hsien Loong has said that "we should mark the occasion (Singapore’s 50th year of independence in 2015) properly, 50 years is a significant milestone…I don’t think we should just have a fireworks display and a party”.


SINGAPORE: Singaporeans will not only have a say in how the nation celebrates its Golden Jubilee in 2015, they will also be invited to plan and organise activities.


A steering committee has been formed to guide and coordinate the plans for Singapore's 50th anniversary celebrations.

Members of the SG50 Steering Committee come from all walks of life including visually handicapped research scientist, Dr Yeo Sze Ling, who was mentioned by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during his National Day Rally speech.


The committee will be chaired by Education Minister Heng Swee Keat.




Mr Heng said: "The story of every individual, every community in Singapore is deeply intertwined with the broader Singapore story and I would like to encourage Singaporeans to share his or her story and every community to do likewise, and together we can create a very meaningful and memorable experience for everyone.


"We are looking at some key events to mark this special occasion and at the same time we look forward to many more ground-up initiatives from Singaporeans and it is really up to the imagination of our fellow Singaporeans to come up with these ideas.


"The committee will provide the support and encouragement for all these activities and the committee will coordinate these activities to make sure we have a good spread of events over the course of the year."


The steering committee will be supported by five committees covering education and youth, culture and community, economic and international, environment and infrastructure, and partnership.


Members will engage partners in their respective sectors to establish meaningful programmes that support the SG50 celebrations.

Key to their work is to encourage active community participation and involvement in the programmes and activities leading to 2015.


A programme office will be set up to coordinate the work of the committees.

It will be headed by Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, Lawrence Wong.


Mr Wong said the priority is to encourage ground-up initiatives, cater to varied interests and ensure that there will be a range of programmes appealing to different sectors and population segments.


"We will make use of different channels and social media platforms to actively engage Singaporeans. We also encourage Singaporeans to come to us with your ideas for Singapore's 50th anniversary, so that together we can shape this milestone celebration," said Mr Wong.

Several other ministers are also involved in the steering committee.


They include Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, Ms Grace Fu; Acting Minister for Social and Family Development, Mr Chan Chun Sing; Acting Manpower Minister, Mr Tan Chuan-Jin; Senior Minister of State for Education and Law, Ms Indranee Rajah.

Some of the committees have already had their initial meetings.


The co-chairman of the Partnership Committee, Mr Koh Choon Hui, said a key task of the committee is to bring together all the trade associations and business chambers in Singapore to be involved in the SG50 celebrations.


Mr Koh, who is also the chairman of the Singapore Children's Society, said: "The Partnership Committee will engage the corporate sector, the industry associations, so we want to reach out to all the industry associations, business associations, the chambers and trade associations and get them involved in celebrating Singapore's 50 years of independence.


"We have recruited 31 industry chiefs in the committee. What we really want is that the celebrations programmes are part of the result of the feedback that we get from the members of the industry associations. It is their programmes, it is their activities and they become part of it."


Another co-chair, Mr Tai Lee Siang, the immediate past president of the Singapore Green Building Council, sits on the Environment and Infrastructure Committee.
Mr Tai said: "A lot of people know that we have a great environment but to use the environment as a celebratory platform, that is quite new.


"And, it is not just about the government leading it but getting people to use the space and enjoying it for the celebrations.

"We want to see people take ownership of these physical spaces and that is something we will see a very different response from the older generation to the very young generation.


"The older generation would like to see memories of these places but the younger generation would use technology to activate these celebrations at these spaces. So we are expecting a great variety of ideas."


Mr Royston Tan, a member of the SG50 Steering Committee, said: "There are many, many discussions about maybe we should do a feature film. One of the ideas that I have proposed is to have a collective story telling of 11 Singapore film makers and to share their take on what Singapore 50 will mean to them.


"It is going to be a very exciting thing whereby you see stories ranging from 1965 to the present time and having so many directors with so many diversified views. It's going to be interesting."


The steering committee will hold its first meeting on Tuesday.

The various other committees will be meeting in the coming months and will start engaging partners from the different sectors soon.


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