Recognising stellar contributions in promoting racial and religious harmony

Members of the Inter-Racial and Religious Confidence Circles (IRCCs),

Chairpersons, Community Leaders, Religious Leaders

Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. A very good evening to all of you. I am happy to be here to join you for our very first IRCC Awards Night. Tonight, we pay tribute to all of you for all the good work that you do, and we particularly want to recognise the work of all our award recipients who will be coming on stage to receive the inaugural IRCC Awards. Congratulations to all of you!
   

IRCC milestones

2. As many of you know, the IRCCs have come a very long way. Some of you will recall that we started with just 1 IRCC more than a decade ago in Joo Chiat. Now, we have 87 IRCCs across the nation. We also have over 1,400 IRCC members – and counting. This clearly shows that your good work in bringing communities together is inspiring many more to be involved.

3. This also shows how the IRCC's mission and vision continue to be very important. In fact, the vision of the IRCC is 'to be networks of trust that unite people, regardless of race or religion'. This is a vision statement that was developed by the IRCC chairmen themselves back in 2009. So it was a vision that was decided by all of you and it remains a guiding principle for us today.

4. You have all worked hard to realise this vision, and I am happy to see that the IRCCs have achieved many significant milestones. Importantly, we have achieved all of these together as one team. Through your commitment and your networks, we are able to reach out to all corners of society, enhancing the appreciation for racial and religious harmony. In recent years, you've also enhanced the outreach and developed more ground up efforts and we have also done more to engage our youthswhich is very important.

5. I believe part of the reason for the growing awareness of IRCC members is also due to the engagement and communication efforts that you all do. I had launched the IRCC newsletter two years ago. We used the IRCC newsletter to highlight the efforts of the IRCC. The articles are  all personally written by IRCC members, and they are very always filled with rich, interesting stories, their own personal stories. One story I came across was a story our Singapore Sporting Hero, Mr C. Kunalan. is one of the most successful sporting pioneers in Singapore. He has a national record for the 100m sprint for many years, and he is still very active in the sporting scene today. The IRCC newsletter shared a very different side of him. It shared about his love story about him and his wife Mdm Chong Yoong Yin.

6. Mr K and his wife met in the 1960s. He shared about how they used to write letters to one another because Mr K would go overseas for competition and there would be time spent apart. But distance wasn't as daunting as parental objections to their marriage. Their parents objected to them getting married. Back in those days, mixed marriages were not so common. Mr Kunalan was even asked to choose between breaking up with Mdm Chong and leaving his home! His parents gave him a stark choice, either break up or leave the home. He stayed by her side, and they are happily married for 48 years now, with three beautiful grandchildren. His story is not just a love story, but one that shows us what it means to persist to look beyond differences in race and religion.

7. His story, on seeing beyond differences, is also one I believe will resonate with our young people. That is why in recent years, we've been engaging our youth through dialogues, and by encouraging them to join the IRCCs too. This is importnat because we want our youth to have a sense of responsibility in preserving Singapore's racial and religious harmony. So, I thank all of you who have been engaging the youth through many forums, discussions and events. In fact earlier this year, we engaged over 350 youth for an open, candid dialogue on the security threats that Singapore faces. We do this regularly with IRCC members but this year for the first time, we also shared with them sensitive and confidential information that we worry about such as the security challenges that impact our lives and our social fabric. We shared this with them and we also facilitated sharing sessions between youth and experienced IRCC leaders. Some of you were involved in that session. Ms Nur Nasuha Bte Selamat, a 22-year-old student, attended one of these sessions. She reflected and she shared later that she felt encouraged to “take charge of (our) future and continue the efforts of the previous generation”. I think it is important to pass on the baton to young people to continue the good work that you have been doing.

8. Beyond building deeper understanding among races and religious groups, the IRCCs also actively spur ground-up initiatives that benefit charities too. For example, we have the IRCC Cares committee that reach out to the disadvantaged and vulnerable members of our society. Since 2009, IRCC Cares has helped 11,700 youth, seniors and many more. Earlier this year, IRCC Cares worked with nine religious organisations to bring 137 special needs students to the Singapore Zoo. I joined them there for a short while and I remember meeting many of you there as well.  I am sure you will stay the course and continue to reach out to those around us who need a helping hand.
   

IRCC awards

9. For all the outstanding work that has been done, we want to say, Thank You. That is why we have launched the IRCC Awards tonight. This evening, we will recognise the exceptional and unwavering support of our volunteers and stakeholders. We are doing so with three different types of awards – awards for outstanding individuals, awards for projects undertaken by IRCCs, and awards for our stakeholders.

10. First, the IRCC Colours Award will be accorded to individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the IRCCs. The three winners this year have all led their respective IRCCs with vision and commitment. One of the winners is a strong advocate of youth engagement. Another has fostered strong ties with the community through charitable programmes and racial harmony events. I'd like to share what one of the winners described in his interview. I won't mention his name, because the winners will only be announced later, and I don't want to spoil the surprise or you'd know who he is. He said that he lived in a Chinese kampong in the 1960s, and there was only one Malay family, who sold Nasi Lemak, in his village. During the riots in the 1960s, the Malay family had to go into hiding, for fear of their lives. He remembers this incident vividly, and the fear the Malay family faced and how others came to help the family. That episode motivates him to make sure that these incidents do not happen again in Singapore and strive to protect the harmony we enjoy. So we have three winners for the IRCC Colours Award and today, we honour the work that he has done for many years.

11. The second category is for IRCC Ambassador Awards. This will be given to our stakeholders who have contributed immensely to the cause of racial and religious harmony. The winners include religious organisations like churches and mosques. In fact, one of the mosques even organised a mooncake festival last year within its premises to promote inter-cultural understanding!

12. Finally, for the third category, we will also recognise successful, innovative projects through the IRCC Harmony Award. We have received five nominations for the Harmony Award, and they are all exceptional examples of best-practices for IRCC programmes. In fact, the decision of which project is the best, is certainly not done by me, and not by a small group of people. But we have invited you all to vote. I believe all of you have a chance to vote for your favourite project and your votes will go into consideration as to which projects wins. The projects feature a heritage exhibition, an 'Amazing Race' style activity for youth, Sport-based programmes that involve cycling and soccer, and a Hong Bao presentation. So it is a good array of projects that you probably saw at the exhibition outside. I hope they will inspire you and motivate you with new ideas for a project in your own IRCC.
    

Conclusion

13. So through these awards, we want to celebrate the achievements of the IRCCs. I hope that you are encouraged to continue your exemplary efforts and that the stories of the award recipients will also inspire all of you even more to contribute to the work of the IRCCs. Whether or not you received an award tonight, please be assured that we value all contributions. I wish I could give an award to give to everyone in this room, but the nature of things, we can only pick a few. We have tried our best to pick some of the best stories. But as I said, please look at the stories of the recipients, be inspired by them and use this as a motivation to do more and do better, do our part to preserve racial harmony in Singapore.

14. We know the work that you is not something that reaps quick or easy rewards. It is not something that be done overnight. It's a continual effort that relies on the hard work of each of you. The next 50 years of the Singapore story will depend on whether we can continue to uphold a harmonious and cohesive society. So we must continue to forge ahead, protecting our stability, helping relations between communities to flourish. And I believe that we can achieve this by standing together, not just as various representatives from different ethnic communities. But standing together as friends and fellow Singaporeans, with a united purpose, believing in a better Singapore for many years to come.

15. Thank you.