Volunteers needed to collect stories from Singapore’s early citizens for Founders’ Memorial

SINGAPORE – The Founders’ Memorial, which is under development and slated to open in 2028, is seeking volunteers to gather stories from Singapore’s earliest citizens for a permanent display it will host.

It is looking for at least 160 volunteers for an initiative called Project Citizens – The First Million, which will

coincide with Singapore’s 60th year of independence in 2025.

The volunteers will speak to and engage seniors under this new programme, which will run from April 2025 to March 2026.

Project Citizens will tell the stories of those who registered as Singapore citizens from May 1966, when the National Registration Act of the newly independent Singapore came into force.

Mr Wai Chung Tai, senior assistant director of partnerships and engagement for the memorial, said 2025 – or SG60, the 60th anniversary of Singapore’s independence – is a good opportunity to acknowledge this founding generation of Singaporeans, who made pivotal and important contributions.

Speaking to The Straits Times on Dec 23, Mr Wai said the memorial will look for these citizens to “understand what were some of the thought processes, some of the choices that they had to make, (and) what were some of the considerations they had in mind when registering to be Singaporean”.

Parliamentary and newspaper reports from December 1965, when the National Registration Bill was being debated, characterised the 1966 registration project as a “re-registration exercise”.

Then Labour Minister Jek Yeun Thong said in Parliament on Dec 22, 1965, that a previous national registration exercise in 1948 – when Singapore was still a British colony – “was haphazardly done”, and explained that re-registering the population would help to eradicate the forging of identity cards for sale to illegal immigrants.

New identity cards would be forgery-, tamper- and water-proof, he said.

By March 1, 1967, 1,101,418 people were issued pink citizens’ identity cards.

The volunteers the memorial’s office is recruiting will facilitate engagement programmes with seniors at venues such as active ageing centres, said Mr Wai.

Each run of the programme will involve two sessions that are each two hours long, he said, adding that this will give volunteers time to build rapport with the seniors, and also allow the seniors time to recall their stories before sharing them at the second session.

Mr Wai said volunteers will go for a five-hour workshop to learn how to facilitate the programme, which will include some experiential activities and visual cues that will help the seniors recall “the 1960s when they were registering as citizens”.

Each volunteer has to attend only one training workshop, and is expected to facilitate three runs of the programme.

Mr Wai said involving the public in the senior engagement programme will help Singaporeans feel that they have a stake in the memorial, which

will be located in the Bay East Garden at Gardens by the Bay.

He added that the Founders’ Memorial will require a “substantial pool of committed and active volunteers” in a variety of roles when it opens.

Previous volunteering opportunities with the memorial included serving as a guide or host for its exhibitions, or participating in engagements at selected milestones of the memorial’s development.

The Founders’ Memorial already has an active pool of about 70 to 80 volunteers.

They include Ms Josephine Ho, 64, who first volunteered with the memorial in 2023 as a host for its

pilot exhibition, Semangat Yang Baru.

Ms Ho, a retiree, said she jumped at the chance to be part of the senior engagement programme as she wanted to hear the stories of those who chose to be part of a fledgling nation.

“Post-independence, we were no longer part of the British Empire, we had just been kicked out of Malaysia, and these people signed up to be citizens – there must be some qualities about them that are very special,” she said.

Another volunteer for the seniors programme, Mr Niki Lee, an artificial intelligence engineer, said he hopes to learn more about Singapore’s heritage through conversations with seniors.

Mr Lee, 27, who has been volunteering with Youth Corps Singapore for seven years with a focus on seniors, said he is excited by the potential of heritage and history to spark meaningful intergenerational conversations.

Mr Wai said the stories collected during the senior engagement programme will be used for a digital display in the Founders’ Memorial that is dedicated to Singapore’s founding generation.

Those who wish to volunteer with the Founders’ Memorial can register at

go.gov.sg/fmvolunteer

Also under Project Citizens, pop-up installations will go up islandwide for a year from April 2025, and the National Gallery Singapore will host, from October 2025 to March 2026, a display with interactive elements titled Not Mere Spectators: The Makings Of Multicultural Singapore.

Mr Wai said the Not Mere Spectators experience will be a “deep dive into multiculturalism” and feature multimedia and digital components.

Its title was inspired by a 1959 speech by founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew at the conclusion of Loyalty Week, where a series of multicultural performances took place and Singapore’s national symbols such as the anthem were introduced.

“They were not just mere spectators watching something being performed for them,” said Mr Lee.

“They were participants, each and every one, in a spiritual experience which will bring our people closer together and make them more coherent, and more loyal to each other and the State which belongs to us all.”

Mr Wai said the Founders’ Memorial team hopes to get people to reflect on the value of multiculturalism through the showcase, and collate public feedback on content presentation for the permanent site.