ACCORD GETS NEW CHAIRMAN; REVIEWS PROGRESS

At its first meeting since the Cabinet changes in September, the Advisory Council on Community Relations in Defence (ACCORD) announced the appointment Senior Minister of State for Defence and Foreign Affairs Dr Mohamad Maliki Bin Osman as its chairman and updated him onthe progress of the various initiatives mooted earlier in the year.

Dr Maliki was also appointed the co-chair of the Employer & Business (E&B) Council in view of former 2nd Ministerfor Defence Lui Tuck Yew's departure. Member of Parliament Dr Janil Puthucheary, who will be Minister of State for Education, Communications and Information come 1 Jan 2016, will also take over the co-chairmanship of the Educational Institutions (EI) Council from Senior Minister of State for Finance and LawIndranee Rajah then.

At the 11 Nov meeting held at SAFRA Toa Payoh, the Council also got an update on the initiatives it had proposed early in the year - about 80 percent of the 18 proposals have since been implemented.

Speaking after the meeting, Dr Maliki shared on the importance of ACCORD to National Service (NS): "As an institution, NS requires the strong support from the community. ACCORD is an action-oriented platform that has proposed many ground-up initiatives to deepen support for NS and Total Defence.

"ACCORD's restructure in August 2014 has certainly empowered ACCORD members to take greater ownership of their initiatives, and play a more active role in engaging the wider community on defence issues."

Dr Yek Tiew Ming, Institute of Technical Education College East Principal and EI Council member agreed that the restructuring has been an effective one: "When I first joined ACCORD two years ago, the structure of it was that it was still one main committee.

"Meetings would cover all aspects that ACCORD was responsible for with the restructuring, for example the EI Council of which I am a part, the topics up for discussion are really close to my heart and I will be able to contribute a lot more - for instance with the pilot fitness programme which aims to help students be better prepared for enlistment."

Ms Claire Chiang, Banyan Tree Holdings Senior-Vice President and Family & Community (F&C) Council Co-chair also felt that the restructuring was beneficial to ACCORD. Looking back, she saidshe was proud of ACCORD's achievements over the past year: "So far, manymeasures have been implemented and I think one of the most significant actions is the engagement of women - for them to understand Total Defence, for them to support and reinforce the training.

"Having women and the community support NS creates a supportive environment and I feel that that is one of the most significant measures."

Added Ms Chiang: "Various measures have been implemented over the past months to further this, be it with the women's groups, business communities, or with the various ministries we are adopting an integrated approach.

"For example, the women's associations now hold road shows, orientation programmes and case studies, to name a few, where they engage the women and the families to tell them more about NS."

This commitment to total defence was also appreciated by Colonel (COL) (NS) Bervyn Lee, Singapore Management University Associate Dean of Students and F&C Council member. COL (NS) Lee shared: "We are a young country, and there is a lot of good that has been done over the past 50 years. NS has been one of the things that ensured our safety and we have to strengthen it.

"At the end of the day, this is about making sure that every Singaporean is committed to supporting what is essentially our survival."