Sian Chay Charity Concert
Good evening ladies and gentleman, I think I am standing between you and the exciting concert. So i make it very brief. First of all, I felt a lot of energy in the air today. Do you know how the Singapore style Chinese music Xin Yao came to be? It started in the 80s, there was a series of students who love music from Hwa Chong start playing music together then overtime it became Xin Yao movement.
Although we just saw two songs today, I sensed so much energy. And all our students here today, I hope that beyond the concert today you can come together and create a new style of Singapore music. So congratulation for the concert. I also would like to congratulate you for choosing this very important course which is helping our senior citizens. This is a very important challenge that Singapore is facing.
Not many of you know this but today five Singapore working adults are working to support one Singaporean aged above 65, five to one. By 2030, this number will be two to one. This would have profile implication to our society. Of course the government, we are doing what we can in the last seven years, we pretty much double our health care spending. If I am not wrong the largest increase in healthcare spending in any developed country. But the government can not do it by itself and that’s why we have groups like Sian Chay who step out and do so together with the rest of the society.
The last point I would like to share before going on to the concert is this, in the last ten years I think Singapore has succeeded in building a very compassionate society. Our social spending because of the support of the people have increased by three times. As I was saying our healthcare spending increased by a lot. And we can look today you see so much good work been done by fellow Singaporeans to help out Singaporeans.
Now this is not the given, this is what the current generation of Singaporeans, whether it’s the established business people like Dr Toh and all the Sian Chay leaders. This is something which your generation have to decide whether it is important to continue. If we think today we have some of the four leading schools in Singapore coming together to make this concert happened. And many of you are seating as audience.
In twenty years, many of you will be school principals, leading business people, government leaders, politicians, philanthropist. Many of you would basically be the leaders of Singapore. So you have to decide whether you still believe in the compassionate society that we have built today.
And I hope that as you lead your fellow peers to make this happen, you will take this time to go to the ground, to spend time in places like Sian Chay to see what are the problems of the ground and then if you are convinced of that, persuade your peers to make sure to keep this tradition for the compassionate society alive and well for Singapore.
Now Singapore is a place which you believe in the fair and justice society and everybody believe to work hard. But when you see vulnerable people out there, nobody hopes to be unlucky, nobody hopes to be in need, sometimes in life things just happened. And that’s why it’s important for us to have this compassionate society and that’s why I hope you, the next generation of leaders can rise up the occasion not just think but feel that we must take care of the vulnerable among us. And with that I would like to congratulate everybody for the hard work and I look forward to the exciting concert. Thank You.