Providing a common experience for all young Singaporeans

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen,
Parents, teachers, students,

1. How are you? Tired? Did you enjoy yourselves? I can see that you are all having a very fun time challenging yourselves, and I’m so glad to have the opportunity also to join you in some of the activities.

2. It has been many years since I was your age and took part in some of these activities. These activities are very challenging, very demanding, but at the same time, make you really realise your own potential, your own weaknesses, your strengths, and they left indelible marks in me. Even now, as I go through them again, the memories – they are something that I could recall so well, until today. I’m sure for all of you here, many, many years later, you will, like me, have very fond memories of your time at OBS. Because whether it is the trust fall, which requires you to trust your mates, believe in yourselves, stretch for the bell; or the height elements – again you got to partner with your pal, you got to trust your belayers who are going to take care of you, and also you have to, in a way, challenge your own limitations that you thought you had. But as you accomplish the activity, then you realise that actually you can achieve a lot more than you thought you could. The rafting – the raft that you built with your teammates. I think my team is still rafting outside, but I’m sure with teamwork, they will get to their destination. Again, I think this will shape us for many, many years to come. I think you will agree with me at the end of your stint that this experience in OBS is life-changing in many ways.
   

3. This was the reason Dr Goh Keng Swee set up OBS in 1967. We were a new nation then, staring down an uncertain future. We needed a tough people. We needed a rugged society. Above all, we needed people who could work as a team and work hard. And that was how OBS was formed – to develop youths with a spirit of derring-do, who could steer us to a brighter and better future.
   

4. 50 years on, we still need a rugged people and a rugged society. Our future remains uncertain. We live in a more diverse society. We face the threats of terrorism. What happened in Brussels or Jakarta or Pakistan recently could well happen here. We need to continue to build up our youths – people like you – to work as a team, to have the ruggedness in our minds and in our bodies. So that when the going gets tough, we will be resilient and hardy enough to overcome it together, to bounce back.
   

5. OBS plays an important role in this vision of rugged youths. Many have been transformed by an OBS experience. I have the great pleasure of meeting one of the recent graduates of the 21-day course. This is 17-year old Nuraishah Bte Mohammad Ibrahim. Before OBS, she felt insecure, she felt that she had to prove herself in the family. She felt that nothing she did was ever good enough. But OBS changed that for her. She came back from the camp knowing that she was stronger than she thought. She saw how far she could go when she believed in herself. She told me that she’s the best chef in the jungle amongst the solo campers. You can fend for yourself, you learn how to survive in the jungle by yourself. And with this renewed confidence, she succeeded in juggling her studies, OBS and Red Cross, and attained a good cumulative GPA of 3.4 in her last exams.
   

6. There are many others like Aishah who have been transformed by OBS. We want many more people to benefit from an OBS experience and we must open up places to as many as possible. In the last 20 years, this Ubin campus has served us well but will not be sufficient for our future requirements. We will expand OBS by building a new OBS campus on Coney Island. I am happy to be able to share with you today what we can all look forward to. 
   

What the New Campus Offers

7. When OBS@Coney is completed in 2020, OBS will be able to serve 45,000 youths every year, triple the capacity today. Every youth will have an opportunity to go through an OBS camp at least once in their schooling years. There will be enough space for everyone. We want OBS to be a common experience for all young Singaporeans.

8. What can we look forward to with this new OBS campus? First, you can expect more exciting facilities and programmes. We are looking around the world now for ideas for the most advanced facilities and programmes that will challenge participants either individually or as part of a team. Challenges where they will have to solve problems under pressure, and to stretch their limits. Take the traditional challenge ropes course, the one that I took with Lisa just now. It can take at most two persons at a time. The new OBS campus will change that. We will have team facilities that can accommodate six to eight people at a time. So imagine yourselves up there, as a whole team, as a big team, and you have to solve problems and tackle obstacles in mid-air. So if you think that OBS already challenges your mental and physical endurance now, then the new OBS campus will ramp that up another notch.

9. The second thing is that Coney is linked to mainland Singapore, so it’s in a great position to launch both sea and land expeditions across Ubin, Coney and the mainland. That means you could be cycling or hiking around the Central Catchment one day, and kayaking around East Coast, Ubin, or the Tekong islands the next day. And you will be challenged by different terrains, involved in different physical activities and be given different obstacles. Indeed, nature will be an integral part to the learning journey for all OBS participants. We want all OBS participants to develop a keen sense of how the environment supports us, and what we can do to keep it lush and thriving. We will design a campus that is nature-friendly, and co-exists with other visitors of Coney Island. We hope to hear from you in the coming months on how best to develop OBS@Coney.

10. All this will make the five-day OBS experience a fascinating one, giving you different experiences that will benefit you for life. It will connect you with the rich natural heritage around us, through land expeditions, such as trekking or cycling through park connectors, parks and nature reserves; height elements – challenge ropes courses, flying fox, abseiling and so on; and water expeditions – sailing, kayaking and rafting through the sea and reservoirs.

11. Finally, to make every OBS experience a meaningful and safe one, we need instructors who are well-trained. These people are your role models and leaders, the ones who guide you through the darkest nights, who lift your spirits when the going gets tough. I’m sure many of you here will leave OBS with fond memories of your instructors.

12. And because so much is expected from an OBS instructor, they have to be stringently selected and must undergo rigorous training before they are ready for the job. We are already doing that now to prepare for the new Coney campus, so that when it opens in 2020, we will have a strong team of qualified instructors ready to lead future generations of youths. Maybe some of you here may even consider returning as instructors, and help transform lives.
    

Conclusion

13. It is no secret that Singapore’s next 50 years may not be easy. To see a happier, stronger Singapore at SG100, we will need citizens who can band together, and stand together for Singapore. By expanding OBS, we are taking bold steps to build the steel, resolve and teamwork skills that you, our youths, will need to bring Singapore forward. And with this, we hope to build a new generation of youth leaders who are confident and believe in themselves, who will work as a team to catch a teammate when they fall, and who have faith that there will always be people waiting to catch you. I trust that this OBS has been an unforgettable event for you, and we hope to bring this to every one of our young people in due course. So we very much look forward to a new OBS, and we will consult the public widely, and we will also encourage you to maybe return one day as instructors.

14. So thank you very much, and have a good, safe and meaningful training in Ubin. Thank you.