People's Association to honour grassroots leaders: PA & Community Spirit Awards 2012

It will give out 67 awards for innovative community projects

By Teo Wan Gek, The Straits Times, 10 May 2012

THE famous paintings of renowned 19th-century painter Vincent van Gogh have helped curb vandalism at an HDB block in MacPherson.

Littering, too, is almost non-existent in the void deck of Block 56, Pipit Road.

The remarkable change came after the walls of the void deck were painted in van Gogh's signature yellow and blue, and his famous works such as Sunflowers and Starry Night reproduced on them.The one-week effort last July will get a pat on the back on Saturday when the People's Association (PA) gives out 67 awards to community leaders for programmes that build and bridge communities.

The Special Community Project Award will be given to grassroots leader Rajesh Singh Dhillon (left), 38, and six others for their innovative and enterprising projects.

Recalling the effort, Mr Rajesh, who is chairman of the MacPherson Zone C Residents' Committee (RC), said about 350 residents, grassroots volunteers and students helped create the wall murals.

The idea came from the RC's youth chapter, which called it Project Grace (Getting Residents, Artists and the Community Engaged).

'We started on it because we wanted the residents to develop a sense of belonging for the place, and to minimise the vandalism of the estate and littering,' he told The Straits Times yesterday.

It has worked.

'There are almost no vandalism or littering cases now, as the people who painted the murals have begun policing the area informally to make sure the murals are not vandalised,' he said.

Another project that caught the PA's eye is an effort to educate people on pet abuse and cruelty through a shared love of animals.

The Paws N Friends Pets Carnival was initiated by the youth executive committees of Bishan North Community Centre and Toa Payoh Central Community Club.

Two carnivals were organised last year, with talks on animal abuse, demonstrations by pet associations on how to care for pets, and a pet talent contest.

Young people were largely driving the project using social networking sites like Facebook to generate interest among pet owners, said Ms Sin Mun Yik, 34, one of the organisers. 'It was very heartening to see many young couples and young people at the carnivals,' she added.

The number of young people like Ms Sin is on the rise, with the number of grassroots leaders aged below 35 increasing from 4,500 in 2007 to 5,600 last year, said the PA. The number of grassroots leaders has also gone up by 16 per cent in five years, to 32,000 in December last year.

More new citizens and permanent residents are also joining their ranks. The number of PR grassroots leaders has doubled in the past five years to 1,600 last year, and there are about 3,000 new citizens volunteering in grassroots projects.

PA chief executive Yam Ah Mee noted that many who do grassroots work have to juggle their time between work, family and other commitments.

'Despite that, many have come forward because they believe it is important to serve those in their community, and they can do things to reach out to others,' he said yesterday.

PA to launch new awards for grassroots
Scheme unveiled at ceremony honouring community groups
By Jennani Durai, The Straits Times, 13 May 2012

The People's Association (PA) will introduce a series of awards next year to recognise grassroots groups' efforts to build a sense of community in their neighbourhoods.

The way the new awards are set up will be guided by the PA's vision to expand outreach from one in three residents to one in two by 2015 - and to do this in an inclusive way, said its deputy chairman Lim Swee Say.

He was speaking at the PA's annual award ceremony at the Fairmont Hotel, an event attended by representatives of grassroots organisations. Some 25 grassroots advisers, including Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, were there.

Yesterday was the last time grassroots groups were handed the PA's current set of awards, which will be scrapped after this year.

A record 51 constituencies picked up the Constituency Achievement Award, and seven won the Special Community Project Award.

Nine corporate and community groups were also given the PA Community Spirit Award for teaming up with the PA in community service projects.

Among them was the CapitaLand Hope Foundation, which banded together with the PA and community development councils to help more than 5,000 students through various assistance programmes.

Mr Lim, who is also Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, explained that the new PA awards will be extensions of the 'All Care' approach.

All Care, an acronym introduced at last year's award ceremony, stands for the key targets of 'channels, ages, races and estates'.

The new awards are the:

- WeInnovate Award, to be given to specific interesting and impactful programmes,

- WeCare Award, for constituencies which successfully show the All Care approach, and

- WeReach Award, for exemplary individual grassroots organisations or sub-committees within these organisations. This will be the first PA award to recognise sub-committees, such as neighbourhood committees, community sports clubs and youth executive committees.

The PA hopes the new awards will lead to 'sharper focus and wider outreach in our community', said Mr Lim.

One grassroots leader present at the ceremony said his constituency is already in sync with the push for All Care.

Mr Tonic Oh from Admiralty said the grassroots organisations in his area have been organising sit-down steamboat dinners for two blocks of residents every week.

After 15 months or so, residents in all 120 blocks in the constituency would have had a chance to take part in the initiative.

This 'Dining With Your Neighbours' project won for the Admiralty grassroots groups one of seven Special Community Project Awards.

Mr Oh, 57, said: 'We wanted something to do with eating, but if it was just a buffet people would just take the food and leave.

'So we came up with the idea of steamboat, and it really worked. We had more than 20 tables each week, and residents began talking to one another.'

The grassroots groups' new focus will be on strengthening bonds across three generations in a family, he added.

'One of our main messages will be to remind residents not to forget their parents,' he said.