Speech by Minister Edwin Tong, Deputy Chairman at the PA Official Opening of Mountbatten Community Club

1. Good evening everyone, Grassroots Adviser, Ms Gho Sze Kee, Mr Lim Biow Chuan, previous Grassroots Adviser – I can see the glow of retirement on your face, distinguished guests, dear residents of Mountbatten. A very good evening to you, and I'm so glad to be able to join you this evening at the opening of the new Mountbatten CC.

2. In many ways, this is like coming home for me as well, because, and I'll share a secret with you, I used to be a resident of Mountbatten more than twenty years ago now, just down the street until I moved away. So it's very good to be back here, be part of the community again, and to be back here at the opening of the new CC.

3. Before I carry on, I want to say a big thank you to all who have made it happen – our grassroots leaders, the many volunteers who worked tirelessly, the sponsors, the partners, and of course, the Grassroots Advisers, both past and present. All of you have come together, put a lot of thought into what you want to do, how you want to use the spaces, and today we have brought this beautiful space into reality, so I would say, give yourselves a big round of applause, and congratulations!

Community Clubs are key to drive PA’s mission

4. The People's Association’s mission has always been the same, since the day we started more than sixty years ago now. It is to connect government to people, people to people, to foster a strong sense of solidarity, of unity and social cohesion. Sounds simple, but especially in the context of today's conflicts, not so simple to achieve, and very cherished, very important for us in Singapore.

5. In all of this, the spaces that we have make a big difference. Our CCs, especially they play a crucial role in achieving our goal of building social cohesion. In the early days we used to come to the CC, just to play basketball, play carrom, watch the news, read newspaper, have coffee and meet old friends. Today, of course, with a newer generation of residents, our needs have changed. Our aspirations have evolved.

6. And so it is important for PA to continue to adapt, to find new ways of making use of our spaces, to innovate, to evolve in order to better serve our residents. Today we have a total of 110 CCs around Singapore, quite a lot, covering all of Singapore; we have four integrated community hubs; we have seven Passion Wave outlets, and we have 768 RN or RC centres all over Singapore; and these are spaces that I'm sure you're all very familiar with.

Community Clubs Today: Evolving to Meet Changing Needs

7. But over time, we have embarked on efforts to continue to ensure that they remain relevant, they remain relevant to your use, and they remain updated technology wise as well as usage wise. We have adopted technology to make it easier, for example, for residents to access the spaces near your home. By end 2026, all our RN centres will be retrofitted with smart devices like you see on the screen – smart door access for residents to enter conveniently at the time of their choice to study, to work or to organise local events for the local community. For example, you see here on extreme left is Robo Racing workshop, as you can see in the photo. We're also installing digital display panels outside the RN centres so that you can get the latest news and be updated on what activities are happening around you.

8. We have also adopted different models for CCs. This CC, of course, is a new CC, but we have CCs in malls like Buangkok and Bidadari. We have integrated community hubs like One Punggol, where we bring together different partners who are co-locating in the same space. We've also been refreshing our CCs – another CC close by, Braddell Heights has been upgraded recently. We've also upgraded Cheng San CC, and of course, one like Mountbatten, where you get a brand new CC, where you are able to reimagine the design altogether for the users of today.

Mountbatten CC – "A Home For All"

9. Today's tagline for the CC is “A Home for All”, and I think it is very fitting because it encapsulates our vision of using the space in the CC to bring everyone around the CC into the estate. Mountbatten, of course, has had a very mature demographic over the years. It's an older estate. But I think we are also beginning to see a refreshing of Mountbatten. There are several new BTOs that are coming up around the CC, and this will lend a lot of youthful vibrancy to the population around the CC.

10. And so therefore your needs will change – the kind of programmes you have, the kind of activities that you want to have will change according to the demographic that you serve. In addition, we want to provide a very comfortable and familiar environment for our seniors. I want them to age gracefully. They must be familiar with the spaces that they are used to. Where do they see their friends? Where do they have coffee with their friends? What activities do they take part in?

11. We're excited, for example, to partner with Lien Foundation and House of Joy to bring Gym Tonic to Mountbatten. It's a specialised facility equipped with hydraulic machines that are safe for our seniors to use. We also want to ensure that we can cater to all interests. Singaporeans today have a variety of different interests and we need to make sure that we cater to them as well. And that's why we have highly versatile spaces like dance studios, music rooms, indoor basketball, spacious multipurpose hall, and earlier on I found out that the most popular facility, of course, is the Pickleball Court, remains very popular here.

Expanding community participation: “Sparks”

12. But I'm sure you will agree with me that at the end of the day, a building space, whether it's a CC, new or old, RN, RC, even if you have a big integrated hub. They are just a building. There is no life and no soul in these buildings without people or programmes, and that's why it's important, even as we build a new CC, to make sure that we continue to empower our residents to step forward and use the CC, use it as a space for meeting people, building community, and of course, forging stronger social cohesion.

13. And we've been thinking of different ways in which we can do this better. We know that there are issues and needs in our own communities that our residents, our volunteers, and many of our grassroots leaders care deeply about. And there are people, especially youths, who want to step forward to help us to develop solutions, to help us to address these issues.

14. So last year we launched “Sparks”. Sparks is where we set aside a dedicated collaborative space in each of the CCs, who are on our Sparks programme, for people who share a common purpose or common cause, to come together to use this space to discuss how we can use the space for collaborative purposes and ideas to serve the community. 10 CCMCs have come together to pilot this effort, and I'm very glad to see that Mountbatten CCMC is one of them. Later on, I will visit the Community Innovation Space or CIS, and I look forward to seeing what Mountbatten has done with this space.

Keeping seniors relevant and connected: Neighbourhood Kakis

15. I talked about seniors earlier, and I want to share one more programme with you that we have in mind, and that we have been really pushing. At a broader level. We are very keen to continue to engage our seniors as well as our young seniors. By the way, I found out that I'm already a young senior, so we have to make sure that we run these programmes and cater to a broader spectrum of seniors and young seniors.

16. PM spoke about this. Singapore is close to becoming a super-aged country, and we therefore need to shift our approach to ensure that we encourage our seniors to stay healthy, socially connected and mentally active. We want to enable seniors to age well in their own neighbourhoods and keep them socially active. And so we need to shift the way we see seniors, no longer just people that we serve, but move from people who we serve to people who can serve, and people who can remain active in our community. They can be an active contributor in many ways in the community. Each of them has valuable skills and their own experiences that if you engage them, you give them a sense of purpose and give them a cause, they will do a great job for us, and I want to be able to be pushing this even more.

17. In 2024, the People's Association started a pilot. We called it Neighbourhood Kakis. Neighbourhood Kakis offered neighbourhood tasks to seniors, sixty years and above, and also to young seniors from fifty years and above, as a way to keep them active, keep them plugged in to what's happening around the community around them. Through this initiative, seniors can browse, find out what's going on around them and sign up to take on simple tasks. These tasks add tremendous value to the community that they live in. It also helps the seniors to add to their own self-worth, their sense of being able to contribute value, to be active and valuable in the space where they live. For example, delivering food to seniors living alone, or simply collecting vegetables from nearby supermarkets, repacking them and making them available to low-income families, or taking steps to restock the community fridge. These, and amongst many others are simple jobs around the neighbourhood, but we have seen very good results from the pilots.

18. Let me share some examples. Mr Saad from Toa Payoh Central. He's in his 70s. Together with his wife, he visits frail seniors every Saturday morning in his neighbourhood. It has become a shared routine for Mr Saad and his wife, and they now also support other simple tasks in the neighbourhood, such as packing goodie bags or going to the RN centre to tidy up. What has kept both of them going, if you talk to them, they will tell you, it is the connection, the friendships, and the rapport that they have built up with fellow residents. They visit others. In turn, they pass it on, and by doing so, one unit, one block, one estate after another, they have forged a much closer, stronger community.

19. Mdm Lee from Bedok. She's 74 years old. She joined Neighbourhood Kaki's shortly after the passing of her husband. How did it happen? An RN manager reached out to her, encouraged her to reconnect with the community and introduced her to Neighbourhood Kakis. It has become a very meaningful journey for her. She tells us that it's a meaningful journey of healing, helping her to find comfort, reconnection, and a renewed sense of purpose. But don't let you hear it from me alone. Hear it from Mdm Lee in this short little video clip.

20. Examples like this, Mdm Lee's example is a tremendous example of how we can engage with seniors in our community. When you engage with them, you'll find out that many of them don't really need caring for. In fact, they can care for others, and they can contribute actively.

21. Since we started the pilot, over 1,400 seniors have signed up like Mdm Lee, and there have been over 30,000 tasks, 20+ different types of tasks, 30,000 tasks have been completed in this pilot. We want to expand this to more seniors, so that more seniors across more constituencies, such as Mountbatten, can benefit from this and can take part in Neighbourhood Kakis. We will do it in a way that is sustainable, easily accessible to our seniors anywhere, anytime, and we want to encourage our seniors to also go digital.

PA Community App: Active Living Room

22. So we work with GovTech to develop the PA Community App, and we will create through this app, a one stop digital community where our residents, seniors alike with others, can find out about what's going on in their vicinity of their own homes and neighbourhood, and they can get connected with fellow residents. We are making good progress with this app, and by 15 April there will be a page on this app dedicated to our seniors called “Active Living Room”, and this will go live on 15 April. This is where seniors can see content that is personalised for them, for their estate, for where they live, and when you click on the active living page, you will be able to see all the senior centric activities and events and exercises that happen around your neighbourhood.

23. That’s also where seniors can access Neighbourhood Kakis to browse and to see what are the tasks available and what you can sign up for. And progressively from May, we will be rolling this out to thirty other constituencies, including those that we've done pilots with. And as part of the rollout in the coming three months, we will be inviting the seniors, not juniors, seniors to come back to teach all of us how to use this app and what their experience on Neighbourhood Kakis have been. They have had hands on experience that they can now pass on and pay it forward. By the end of 2026, all of Singapore's constituencies across the whole island will be onboard and we will all be able to use Neighbourhood Kaki. And I hope that Mountbatten will be one of those who champions Neighbourhood Kakis and makes our seniors feel valued, active in space, and paying it forward even at a senior age.

Conclusion

24. As I conclude, I want to go back to our new CC opening. I want to say one message before I stop this. And that is to remind all of us that even as we have a new CC, bright new, spanking new premises, remember, it is the people who bring the heart and soul to the CC. Our programmes lend life to this CC. So use the CC as a space for connection, for cohesion, for activity, and to bring people together across all generations, young, old, different races, because this is what makes Singapore special. Our multiculturalism, our multireligious and multiracial harmony is very special. It is in a place like the CC many years ago that this first started – this whole ethos and thinking that we in Singapore can exist, despite our differences and be stronger because of our diverse interests and our diverse backgrounds, and it starts with each of the CCs we have. So use this CC for the space, but also use this for the values and the relationships that this can create.

25. Once again, my warmest congratulations to Sze Kee and your team. Thank you very much for having me open this CC, and I look forward to visiting the CC in time to come as well. Thank you very much.