OH! Open House 2012: Call for volunteers.

Fri, 9 Dec 2011
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Interested in leading your own art walkabout in Singapore’s hippest neighbourhood?

Then look no further – volunteer to help out with the OH! Open House 2012 walkabouts next year!

What you’ll be doing:

  • Bringing people into six real-life homes that’ve been transformed into art spaces and acting as their guide.

What you’ll receive:

  • FREE opportunities to meet new and interesting people,
  • A FREE special edition OH! 2012 t-shirt,
  • FREE training on how to talk about art, among other FREEbies I haven’t mentioned.

Commitment intensity:

  1. One training session at Evil Empire on either Sun, 15 Jan 2012 (2pm)  or Mon, 16 Jan 2012 (8pm),
  2. One walk-through in said hippest neighbourhood on Sun, 12 Feb 2012 (2pm) or Mon, 13 Feb 2012 (8pm), and
  3. One or more volunteer sessions on:
    • Sat, 18 Feb 2012 from 4 – 8.30pm,
    • Sun, 19 Feb 2012 from 4 – 8.30pm,
    • Sat, 25 Feb 2012 from 4 – 8.30pm, and/or
    • Sun, 26 Feb 2012 from 4 – 8.30pm.

It’s quite intense, but it’s over a relatively short period of time, so do spare the time to go if you can.

I would do this, but unfortunately, I have a National Service call-up over that period, which means I’m gonna need the weekends to catch up with work (yes, that’s the price of being male in Singapore).

In any case, more info/sign-ups at the OH! Open House 2012 website.

P.S. If you’re a student, you should totally volunteer – besides the learning opportunities, you’ll get CIP hours too!

Place youth on the right path via parental involvemen​t.

Thu, 8 Dec 2011
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Dear Madam/Sir,

I REFER to “Military school, to curb delinquency” (Dec 6).

A military school will not meet the needs of our society, and will only result in us fighting fires as opposed to preventing them.

As part of my full-time National Service in 2002, I served as an instructor in the now-defunct Singapore Armed Forces Education Centre (SAFEC), the successor to the SAF Boys’ School.

SAFEC was an alternative educational pathway for the boys – not an institute to reform delinquent children per se.

The stories which many of the boys told me always had the same root cause: physically- or emotionally-absent parents.

The lack of parental guidance and supervision resulted in the wayward behaviour of the boys and therefore, their inability to focus on their studies.

This led to a vicious cycle of poor academic performance and further waywardness, resulting in them having to choose SAFEC over other less desirable options.

Hence, I agree with Mr Chua that the root cause of poor parenting is due to parental cluelessness and/or irresponsibility and should be dealt with in a commensurate and progressive manner as follows:

  1. First, we as members of our individual communities need to take it upon ourselves to correct inappropriate behaviour, both on the parts of the parents we know, as well as their children.
  2. Next, the ethnic and/or religious communities we belong to must step up to the plate by working with parents to implement parental-training clinics to instill appropriate values and understanding in our parents and parents-to-be.
  3. Last but not least, the government can consider instituting compulsory, co-paid parental-training programmes via the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports. While tax-payers need to acknowledge the sacrifice that parents make to contribute to our Total Fertility Rate, parents also need to acknowledge that their children are a responsibility that must not be shirked.

With these measures, youth will be placed on the right path from the onset, thereby removing some part of the present and future burden of having to “steer juvenile delinquents back to the right path”.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,
Laremy LEE (Mr)

(Published as “Put youth on the right path via parental involvement” on 8 Dec 2011 in TODAY.)

13th month payment: Killing the beast.

Fri, 2 Dec 2011
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Killing the beast.

I wrote about this before when I received my first 13th month payment and I was confused about what it entailed exactly.

It’s time to kill this beast, as with other beasts that have stalked and skulked around our society menacingly and unnecessarily.

To help us in doing so, please read this post which clarifies the idea of the payment of salaries i.e. one is paid consistently for all days of work, so the 13th month payment is an entitlement and not a privilege.

For comparison, this is what the Ministry of Manpower has to say about it:

The Annual Wage Supplement (AWS) is commonly known as the 13th month payment. It is a single annual payment to employees that supplements the total amount of annual wage earned by them.

Payment of AWS depends on the contractual agreement between the employer and the employee i.e. whether it is provided for in the employment contract or collective agreement.

If it is not stipulated in the employment contract, AWS payment is subject to negotiation and mutual agreement between the employer and employee, or the trade union representing the employee.

That’s why some people have been short-changed by their employers or have been unfairly conditioned into believing the ’13th month payment’ is a bonus.