|
YAY I'M FINALLY POSTING AGAIN!
After a week of countless events happening, coupled with a bout of flu and a frightening fever, finally finally I see the desperate need to remove this stagnancy! I've never left the blog stagnant for so long before (I think) and I have no plans to leave it that way either! Helps me record my thoughts and serves as a nice archive for life anyway :D
It's been quite fun over the past few days with my days saturated full of activities! And I'll go over them one by one :D
RAFFLES COMMUNITY LEADERS FORUM 2008
I attended RCLF from Friday last week all the way to Tuesday - and it was indeed quite a blast. My student interest group was Civic Engagement for Youths, and it was very insightful considering how engaging citizens in the affairs of the country on different levels is very relevant to Singapore's current context, whereby the stability and safety of our environment and community has been achieved and we are now looking further for increased participation by the people.
And it was interesting considering how we were exposed to the various situations of different countries - there were international delegates from Thailand, the Philippines, Laos, Vietnam, China and Indonesia in my SIG - and each country had its own specific situation in which civic engagement was at an entirely different level.
I had many questions in mind too - Singapore has progressed in terms of civic engagement; from a passive participation of events by its people, it has developed into citizens taking the initiative to derive and develop projects in which the government would subsequently approve of and back up in terms of funding and support. The challenge for Singapore would be to allow its people to take a step further - in terms of political participation. What would be the benefits should Singaporeans be able to gain an increased political voice in the country, or rather, what would be the consequences? Would Singapore be willing to trade a possible decrease in political stability for increased communication between government and its people?
Comparing our case to that of the Philippines (in which they have numerous organizations handling almost every area of social concern), the Filipinos' participation in their country's political affairs is quite high, and this is linked to their country's historical context in which their colonial powers, the USA was very liberal with them and they emphasized self-government on all levels. Perhaps it was our history which affects our civic engagement status - due to the communist threat in the past, etc. Oh well there are many questions left unanswered, but time always tells us more ahead!
Some photos taken at RCLF over the past few days!
The SIG discussions were interesting - though long and tiring but we explored many perspectives, and it was pretty much an eye-opener for me!
I attended two non-civic-engagement workshops over the two days too - educational opportunities, and juvenile delinquency, and they were really relevant too. We also came across the idea that actually, all the other workshops were essentiall about civic engagement - it's true!
And of course, photos with my SIGmates! They were a cool bunch :D Plus our SIG leader mingquan was quite cool and he handled the 4 days without much difficulty! And I realized he's one of the smartest guys around too! Go mingquan, rock the CTs!
Cool naomi and her cool jazz band rocking at the entrance of the MPH before our formal dinner marking the end of RCLF. Thanks naomi and ruiling for being so nice and kind! Dropping me a note while I was horribly asleep and cold in the canteen!
AND THE PHOTO OF THE DAY: HAHA I ACTED AS THE SON OF THE MOST AWESOME COUPLE!
Well that was RCLF, 7-11 March 2008 :D Shall post the rest of the events over the past week in another post!
| 
