SPEECH BY MR THARMAN SHANMUGARATNAM, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION, AT THE LAUNCH OF THE THUMBS UP! CENTRE AND LIFE COACHING PROGRAMME ON SATURDAY, 23 JULY 2005, AT 10.30 AM, AT DUNMAN SECONDARY SCHOOL

SPEECH BY MR THARMAN SHANMUGARATNAM, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION, AT THE LAUNCH OF THE THUMBS UP! CENTRE AND LIFE COACHING PROGRAMME ON SATURDAY, 23 JULY 2005, AT 10.30 AM, AT DUNMAN SECONDARY SCHOOL

Mr Mah Bow Tan

Minister for National Development

Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed

Mayor, Northeast CDC and

Minister of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon

Minister of State, Ministry of Community, Youth & Sports

Dr Amy Khor

Mayor, South West CDC

Mrs Edelweiss Neo

Principal of Dunman Secondary School

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

Students

Good Morning

INTRODUCTION

1. It gives me great pleasure to join all of you this morning to witness the launch of Thumbs Up! Centre as well as the Life Coaching Programme. It is great initiative, that is getting larger.

THE SUCCESS OF THUMBS UP!

2. “Save the Children” Singapore started Thumbs Up! because they wanted to see our youth gain a better self image. It was a simple but important objective. Getting each of our youth to not only have dreams but believe that they are able to fulfil them. And that they can make valuable contributions to the community they live in.

3. Thumbs Up! started off as a one-day programme, designed simply to help students understand themselves and others better. The programme customised the established DISC behavioural style profile[1] for the purpose of student-profiling. In just four years, it has been able to reach out to over 20,000 students in more than 50 schools. That’s not a bad start.

THUMBS UP! CENTRE - FOR MENTORS AND MENTEES TO HANG OUT

4. The new centre for volunteers and students provides an alternative venue, besides schools, for volunteer mentors to meet with students. Parents will I am sure feel more at ease knowing that their teenagers are meeting their mentors at a designated centre rather than at cafes or in shopping malls. After having seen the centre and its facilities earlier today, I am sure that both the volunteers and students will find it a natural place to hang out together.

5. I suggest Thumbs Up! sets up a few more centres over time, as the numbers of volunteers and students expand. We can see how this first centre fairs and model similar ones in the near future.

LIFE COACHING PROGRAMME – PROVIDING THE FOUNDATION

6. Thumbs Up! is also embarking on the next phase of its journey, in the form of the Life Coaching programme. This is another way to equip our youth with a foundation of life skills - skills that will help them weather the ups and downs in life. Through the structured coaching sessions, workshops and fun activities, students will be able to openly discuss issues that affect them and the choices that they will have to make in life.

7. The Life Coaching programme is a good transition from the one-day programme Thumbs Up! currently runs. The volunteers now have a more structured approach to help and advise their mentees.

DEDICATION OF MENTORS

8. The dedication of volunteers of Thumbs Up! are of course what makes the programme work. They each have full-time jobs and responsibilities but the commitment to do something meaningful to help and guide our youth. They are leaders.

9. About 30 Life Coaches have signed up as volunteer mentors for the Life Coaching Programme. They will meet their mentees approximately once every 2 weeks for a period of one year. The time, energy and emotion that the mentors there are putting into this is really commendable.

10. The role models that we need for our youth need not be perfect. Neither will they want to pretend that they were perfect, without the fears or insecurities that we all have at some points in our lives. But they will be able to inspire our young by showing how they themselves have taken on the difficulties and challenges in life that we all face. Some Life Coaches will also be able to say how they took the tough road to get to where they are. Or the road less travelled. They will each in their own way be able to give confidence to our youth - give them the confidence to believe in themselves, to know that there are many paths to personal success. To know that success early on is often not what leads to success later in life, and that if you learn to take failures and setbacks you usually end up the stronger athlete.

CONCLUSION

11. So let me once again applaud the life coaches. I am sure you will each learn and grow with the youth that you mentor too, as you take this new journey together.

[1] DISC stands for Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness.