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Ministry of Culture, Community & Youth
Press Statements

MCCY to support 6,000 youth corps volunteers annually to contribute to community causes

Sectors

Youth

22 August 2013

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced the setting up of a volunteer youth corps to enable young Singaporeans to contribute to the community.

Media fact sheet

Background

  1. At the National Day Rally 2013, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced the setting up of a volunteer youth corps to enable young Singaporeans to contribute to the community. The youth corps will expand the opportunities as well as the support for youths to do community projects overseas and in Singapore. Working with partner organisations, including the ITE, Polytechnics and Universities, the programme will match young people with critical community needs, and help them build the capacity to make a sustained and meaningful contribution to society.

Objectives

  1. The volunteer youth corps will:

    1. Support a new generation of youths who want to contribute to the community;

    2. Nurture a culture of giving back to society among young Singaporeans;

    3. Encourage young Singaporeans in the ITEs, polytechnics and universities to continue serving the community even after graduation.

Volunteer youth corps

  1. Generally, our youths are keen to do more social good in Singapore. At the same time, they welcome more support in making impactful and sustainable changes. Currently, while youth programmes and outreach efforts have been impactful, they are mostly small-scale in nature. The volunteering experience also tends to be ad-hoc, varied in quality, and frequently not sustained beyond the school years. This has also been observed from the findings of the Individual Giving Survey 2012. While there was an increase in the overall volunteerism rates in Singapore, the Survey highlighted the following observations:

    1. A significant drop in volunteerism among youths as they progress from school to the workforce. 

    2. A shift towards ad hoc volunteering, with individuals preferring short-term assignments with a low degree of commitment: 73 per cent of current volunteers in Singapore do so occasionally, compared to 55 per cent in 2010.

  2. The volunteer youth corps, which is open to students in ITE, Polytechnics and Universities as well as young adults, will expand opportunities for youths to volunteer and make a difference to the community in a sustained and meaningful way. The programme will have two key components:

    1. Overseas community projects – We will build on the existing Youth Expedition Project (YEP) and restructure it to have more focus and impact. See Annex B on details of the YEP.

    2. Local community projects – We will match youths to critical local community needs and enable them to make sustained and meaningful contributions.

  3. NYC will provide resources for youths to implement their local and overseas projects. For youths who would like to take time off from their studies to do full-time community service (e.g. do a gap semester), NYC will provide allowances to support them. Upon completion of their projects (both overseas and local), NYC will also provide a ‘pay-it-forward’ grant for youths to continue serving the community.

  4. To ensure that the projects are well implemented and bring sustainable benefits to the people they are meant to serve, the youths will need to be equipped and well-trained. NYC will therefore work with several youth organisations to develop training and mentoring programmes for the youth corps members. NYC will also work with community organisations to provide these youths with a positive volunteering experience and help them achieve good project outcomes.

  5. As part of the youth corps, members can also look forward to more networking opportunities with other like-minded youths, to share their experiences and explore future collaborations. NYC will also provide opportunities for members to engage with leaders in the people, public and private sectors, as well as corporates with strong CSR programmes.

IMPLEMENTATION

  1. Over the next few months, MCCY and NYC will hold a series of dialogue sessions to engage youths and other community partners to develop the details of the volunteer youth corps programme. MCCY and NYC plan to pilot the volunteer youth corps in early 2014. Over time, we aim to support 6,000 youth corps volunteers annually to contribute to the community.

  2. For general enquiries, contact MCCY / NYC at:
    Email: youthcorps_enquiries@mccy.gov.sg (opens in new tab)
    Phone: 6734 4233