Gotong Royong

Summary

Mr Lakshmanan remembers the days when Eunos was a Malay kampung. The spirit of gotong royong — social reciprocity through mutual aid — was very strong in the village. The village elders were senior Muslims who were respected because of their religious piety and social standing. So he recreated that spirit in today's multi-racial Eunos by starting the Kampung Spirit@Eunos programme, in which a Council of Elders, comprising highly respected senior Singaporeans from various ethnic and religious groups, use their wealth of experience to act as resource persons on issues relating to inter-religious affairs. They provide advice as well to the Adviser of Eunos, former Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Zainul Abidin Rasheed. “In any incident of a racial or religious nature, these elders will be level-headed and influence others to be the same”, Mr Lakshmanan says. The Kampung Spirit@Eunos programme seeks to promote greater neighbourliness “as seen in the good old kampung days” when neighbours knew and trusted one another, lived harmoniously in peacetime and displayed social solidarity during a time of crisis, he adds.

The Kampung Spirit@Eunos programme involves a group of Community Engagement Champions (CEC) which acts as the central committee to drive CEP-related programmes in the community. “In line with the CEP's approach on leveraging on existing structures and programmes, the Eunos CEC is the central committee in ensuring coordinated efforts by all grassroots committees to organize and run CEP-related programmes that are relevant to their targeted outreach groups”, Mr Lakshmanan notes. The objective is to develop effective networks in the community which will ensure that, in times of crisis, residents remain united and strong and respond to situations as a single community. Since the programme's inception in 2007, Mr Lakshmanan has expanded it to schools in Eunos, where skits promoting communal harmony have been staged. In 2010, the programme included an IRCC Dragon Boat Race and a Eunos Inter-Faith Carnival.