New National Youth Internship Programme to drive community and youth leadership beyond school years

A/P Stephen Phua, Chairman, NPCC Council
NPCC Council Members 
Ms Liew Wei Li, Director, Student Development Curriculum Division, MOE
Heads of Uniformed Groups
Volunteers and Campers

1. A very good morning to all of you, I’m very pleased to join you today to open this year’s National Camp.

2. This camp is a very important part of the UG calendar. It is held only once every two years, so I’m sure you’ve all been looking forward to this day.

3. The four-day National Camp is organised by NPCC and hosted by Home Team Academy, so let us show our appreciation to them as well.

4. So over the next 4 days, you’ll get a chance to meet people from different uniformed groups, schools and backgrounds. I hope you will make use of this opportunity to learn from others, share with one another, make new friends. I am sure along the way you will forge memories which will be with you for a long time, which you will always treasure. So as the theme for this year’s camp is ‘Learning for Life, for All’, I would encourage you to fully immerse yourself and fully make use of this opportunity to learn from others and to improve yourself.

Contributing to community

5. Just last weekend, we also celebrated our nation’s 49th birthday, our 49 years of independence, our National Day. I am sure many of you were watching on TV. How many of you were participating in the parade? Some of you were actually participating. Very good. Well done. So some of you were actually on site, participating in the parade, I am sure many of you would have the chance to watch it on TV and I hope you enjoyed it.

6. As we celebrate our National Day, I hope that all of you will take the time to reflect on what you would like Singapore to be like in the future, and how you can contribute to that future.

7. We have created many programmes for our youths to get involved in our community, to contribute to Singapore’s future and give back to society. One platform is the Youth Corps, it is a new platform which we just launched earlier this year. It provides leadership training for young people and provides youths, including young working adults, with the support to carry out projects in the community that will help address real community needs.

8. Several Uniformed Groups members – your seniors – are in the pioneer batch of the Youth Corps. This should not be a surprise to us, given what the Uniformed Groups stand for – character, values, and the courage to pioneer something new.

9. One of your uniformed group seniors is Nicole Wong, a member of the Red Cross and also a final year student at Singapore Polytechnic.

10. She is in the first batch of the Youth Corps and is participating in the Youth Corp programme now. She is part of a Youth Corp team that is working with SUN-DAC, which is a Day Activity Centre for those with intellectual disabilities. Nicole and her teammates are working with the centre staff, and is trying out a solution to enhance communication with the intellectually disabled, they using something called Aided Language Stimulation (ALS) Boards – these are boards with some pictures and words on them to enhance communication.

11. This is what Nicole had to share about her experience in the Red Cross and now in the Youth Corps currently and I will quote from her: “When you learn first aid, it seems easy, but when you actually perform real first aid on someone, it is much more difficult. Similarly, in the Youth Corps, while you can think of solutions, it’s not that easy once you actually try to do it. For SUN-DAC, the idea of the ALS board sounds good, but the board designs have to be tested with the intellectually disabled and then refined. Then, we will have to learn how to use them ourselves, and then train the staff to use them effectively.”

12. So Nicole is now fully immersed in her community, fully immersed in her project, and making an impact to the lives of the people around her. The skills and practical mindset that she gained from the Red Cross is helping her with her Youth Corps work, and to serve the community more effectively.

13. Another uniformed group senior who is also in the Youth Corps is Shativalan – a student at Republic Polytechnic, and a Cadet Inspector for the NPCC. He goes back regularly to his alma mater, Pioneer Secondary School, to train and mentor his NPCC juniors. He has gone for National Camp before, in 2008, about six years ago, so once upon a time he was where you are now.

14. Shativalan finds that his NPCC experience is very useful for him to do community work in the Youth Corps. When he heard I was going to be talking to you today, he asked me to send you a message and this is what he has to say “Please help me tell my juniors this: I strongly encourage you to join the Youth Corps. The experience you get in the Uniformed Groups is very valuable in when volunteering, even if sometimes what you’re learning feels unimportant. Things like time management, teamwork, coordination, and understanding team dynamics to run teams effectively – these things I learnt from NPCC, and they are very helpful to me now in the Youth Corps.”

The National Youth Internship Programme

15. So this is Shativalan, an NPCC cadet inspector, he was exactly where you are today six years ago. And now he found the skills he learnt in NPCC is very valuable for him, and he is continuing to serve in the community. So you can see, there are many of your uniformed group seniors are doing very meaningful work, serving others, making an impact in the lives of others.

16. I hope all of you will be inspired to follow in their footsteps. Use what you have learnt in your uniformed group experience to serve the community and to benefit other people.

17. We’ve set up the Youth Corps precisely for this purpose. The Youth Corps programme is a very intensive one – it’s a one-year commitment to engage in service learning and community projects both overseas as well as in Singapore.

18. Not everyone is able to make such a commitment, especially when you are still in school. So both MCCY and MOE have been discussing what else we can do to support young people like yourselves. How do we help you, particularly when you have an interest to serve the community? How we can give you an opportunity to do so in a meaningful and impactful way.

19. Today I’m pleased to announce that we will be launching a new National Youth Internship Programme (NYIP).

20. This will be a full-time paid internship, lasting two to six months, for our youths to serve the community and gain practical life-experiences outside of school. We envisage the internship would apply mostly to youths after their secondary education, and when they are in transition between the schools and the new institutions they are going to, be it to Junior Colleges, Polytechnics or ITEs. I believe most of you are in Secondary Three, so after you finish your ‘O’ levels, most of you will have a transition window, and if you would like to do something meaningful, you can take up an internship opportunity, this is an opportunity you can apply for.

21. We will pilot this internship programme this year with the uniformed groups first. So if you sign up, you will go back to your respective uniformed groups as an intern, paid full time as an intern. You will be doing work not only with your uniformed group HQ but you will also be helping them to lead service projects in the community. After this pilot with the uniformed groups, we intend to open up the internship programme to other community and youth organisations.

22. I hope all of you will consider taking up this internship opportunity. You will be working full-time as an intern and you will receive a monthly allowance. More importantly, through the internship, I am convinced you will gain valuable skills and experience, you will be able to build on the foundations that you have developed through your uniformed groups experience and in the process, I am sure you will find meaning and fulfilment in service.

23. And if you want to continue serving after your internship is over, there will be many opportunities to do so. For example, you can take on leadership positions in the uniformed groups, and of course, we welcome all of you to join the Youth Corps.

24. There are also many other things you can do next year, when we celebrate Singapore’s 50th anniversary of independence. It’s a significant milestone, and we want all Singaporeans, especially our young people, to be involved in the celebration. So if you have ideas on how we can celebrate together, how we strengthen our sense of belonging as a people, let us know what ideas you have, what projects you would like to do. We will provide you with the resources and the guidance to carry out your projects. The National Youth Council is prepared to support you, so long as you have a good idea to celebrate the golden jubilee with your friends and the community, we will be very happy to support you in your ideas.

Conclusion

25. In closing, let me wish all of you an enjoyable and enriching time in this Camp. I hope you will make full use of this opportunity to collaborate, exchange ideas with one another, and expand the opportunities to serve in our Uniformed Groups. When you serve, your life will be richer, your community will be happier, and our nation will be stronger. On that note, I declare National Camp 2014 officially open.