Have your say on memorial honouring S'pore's 1st-gen leaders

Have your say on memorial honouring S'pore's 1st-gen leaders

The Founders' Memorial Steering Committee, tasked with conceptualising a memorial to honour Singapore's first generation of political leaders, will soon start a series of eight dialogues to gather views from members of the public.

The eight sessions will run from Oct 31 to Dec 15, and those interested can sign up at the new website www.foundersmemorial.sg.

Three sessions will be in English and open to all. In addition, one session will be for youth and another for members of the Pioneer Generation. There will also be three sessions, one each in Chinese, Malay and Tamil.

Members of the public can also provide their feedback online, using a form on the same website, the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) said in a statement yesterday.

The committee was formed on June 30 to come up with a concept for a memorial to honour the values and ideals of the founding generation of leaders, and inspire future generations.

Its new website seeks views from the public on the type of memorial they would like to see.

The 15-member committee, helmed by Esplanade chairman Lee Tzu Yang, will also gather views through surveys in the coming months.

The committee also intends to hold roundtables with specific groups, like historians and educators, to seek their views.

The feedback, as a whole, will provide the committee with views from different stakeholders and a wide range of Singaporeans, MCCY said.

The committee, which started its work in June, has been planning how to engage the public, and conducted pilot discussions in small groups. Its work is expected to continue until the end of next year.

Mr Leetold reporters after the group's first meeting that he had met people who "did not care much or know much" about the development of modern Singapore. But founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew's death on March 23 galvanised them to "suddenly discover an area to be looked at, explored and debated".

Efforts will also be made to ensure the late Mr Lee's legacy will not eclipse that of his core team, which included Goh Keng Swee, S. Rajaratnam, Othman Wok, Hon Sui Sen and Lim Kim San.

waltsim@sph.com.sg


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