Civic Conversations

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As a multi-racial and religious society, maintaining social cohesion and harmony is a top priority. But can Singapore stay united as the world and society shifts, unwittingly at times, toward polarising views? As a heterogeneous population, we promote safe and brave dialogues to nurture empathy and understanding.

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Listen to what Minister Edwin Tong had to say about how the Government ensures every voice is heard and respected in policy making, particularly when it concerns sensitive, and potentially divisive issues. Nurturing youths’ capacity to discuss important but complex issues is especially important in a multi-cultural nation like Singapore. At the National Youth Council’s dialogue on race and religion, panel members shared about how the digital space has had an impact on how we address race and religious issues in Singapore, what youths can do to address cancel culture online and why having face to face conversations across society is so important to maintaining our social cohesion.

“There are instances of bias [towards people of different races]... So having these conversations with more people from various backgrounds, you can actually understand why they derive certain conclusions.”

- Muhamad Tassri, Holler Member (Civic Convo Toolkit Launch participant, Straits Times)

Civic Conversations Toolkit

In 2022, NYC developed a Civic Conversations Toolkit, in the form of conversation cards, to provide youths a guide on how to engage in inter-racial and inter-religious discussions with care and empathy. The toolkit was developed in collaboration with Bold at Work and The Whitehatters.

The toolkit was launched by SMS Janil Puthucheary and the event was attended by 70 youth participants. During the launch, participants shared that the localised case studies and talking prompts within the toolkit helped to catalyse conversations on the topic and provided a frame for them to share their personal experiences.

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View the toolkit introduction video, or click here to learn more about the toolkit. There will be more toolkits that will be developed to allow youths to tap on to address local-foreign and inter-generational issues.

To understand these topics in-depth, build informed opinions and develop the skills, values and competencies required to engage in civic conversations. Click here to explore the Civic Conversations Content Hub that NYC had developed together with TODAYonline