PM Lawrence Wong at the PCF Family Day 2024

MOS Sun Xueling,
My Cabinet and Parliamentary colleagues,
PCF CEO, Management Team,
Teachers and Staff,
Children,
Ladies and gentlemen,

I am delighted to join you for this year’s PCF Family Day and let me start by wishing all our children a Happy Children’s Day and everyone here a Happy Family Day.

I think we should also give another round of applause for the kids that performed just now, they did such a wonderful job. And of course we thank MOS Sun and team for organising today’s event at Downtown East.

As you all know, I am a graduate of PAP kindergarten in Marine Parade way back in the 70s.

After entering politics in 2011, I served as PCF Exco Chair.

Then served as PCF Council Chair.

Now as PM, I am happy to continue supporting PCF.

We all know that families are the bedrock of our society, they form the critical anchor of Singapore’s society and the Government is committed to creating a more family-friendly environment in Singapore.

I spoke about this at the National Day Rally this year and we are doing several things to better support families.

Whether it is providing more subsidies for pre-school to help young parents and their children; providing more help for young parents to purchase new flats.

Or to provide more leave for them when they have their kids.

As well as more support for larger families with 3 or more young children.

These are things that we are thinking about, have done or are planning to do.

But it is not just about Government policies.

All of us must do our part to support families in Singapore

That is where charity and non-profit organisations, social service organisations like PCF can play a critical role.

PCF today is the largest pre-school operator in Singapore.

We remain fully committed to providing affordable and quality pre-school education for our children.

So that every child in Singapore, regardless of background, every child can be assured of a good start in life.

Another important part of being family-friendly is also to take better care of our seniors.

Because we all know we have a rapidly ageing population.

And there will be more and more of us in the sandwiched group – those who look after elderly parents and also have to look after young children at the same time. It is the result of longer lifespans. We are all living longer, not just here in Singapore but around the world.

Long life is good. But it is also important to have healthy life. Unfortunately while modern medicine has enabled us to treat illnesses and live longer, it has not made us healthier.

I don’t think anyone wants to live till 90 or 100 even. There are more and more of us living to a 100 and beyond these days. But who wants to live so long and spend most of your time 10, 20 years of your life in and out of hospital. No one wants that to happen.

So what is critical is not to just have long life, but to keep healthy and to age well.

The question is, how to stay healthy?

Unfortunately there is no miracle drug.

There are some simple things that we can do. If we do it consistently, that can be very effective – like having good diet, regular exercise, and having a wide network of social relationships. These things can help.

That is why, the Government again is rolling nation-wide programmes to support these important imperatives – Healthier SG and Age Well SG are what we are trying to do to help every Singaporean stay active and keep healthy.

Again, the Government cannot do this on our own.

We need to work with partners and stakeholders. And that is where PCF is also stepping up.

While PCF is already well-known for being a preschool operator, we now are moving into the senior care space, to meet the evolving needs of our society.

PCF now have 9 Senior Care Centres, 4 Active Ageing Centres, and we plan to do more in the future.

And I am very glad that PCF is now starting to do this.

When I started out in life, I had access to PCF services. I hope later in life, when I get older, I also will have access to PCF services near my home. Then PCF can take care of Singaporeans from start to finish.

PCF’s work is not limited to providing social services.

As a charitable foundation, PCF also strives to do its part to support the wider community and our diverse range of partners.

So every year during Family Day, we also go about a fund-raising event.

Our Mayors take turns to raise funds for charities within their districts. So we are fund-raising not just for ourselves, but charities in our districts across Singapore so as to benefit others.

This year’s fund-raising is led by South West District – so we thank Mayor Low Yen Ling and her team for raising more than $600,000. Well done.

Ultimately, this spirit of fellowship is what is important in Singapore. We need this spirit of partnership to take Singapore forward.

We all know we are entering a new phase of nation building.

It will be a phase that is full of challenges; but also many, many opportunities to take Singapore to greater heights.

In the end, while the world around us is changing, the key fundamentals remain unchanged. And that is, we can succeed only by working together as one people.

That’s why we had the Forward Singapore exercise some time back. So that we can find new and better ways of doing things; new and better ways of refreshing and strengthening our social compact.

We want to help every Singaporean thrive and realise their full potential; we want to look for one another and support each other; we want to support our families and keep our society strong and united. These are our imperatives for our next bound of nation building.

So I look forward to working with all of you to take Singapore Forward, and to build a brighter future for all our families!

Thank you very much.