Minister for Communications and Information and Grassroots Advisor for Jalan Besar Grassroots Organisations, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, officiated at the Kolam Ayer Emergency Preparedness Day this morning. The theme for this year’s Emergency Preparedness Day is “A Community of Prepared Citizens”. Given the spate of terror attacks happening in different parts of the world in recent weeks, it reminded Singaporeans of the “very serious” terrorism threats that Singapore faces and how they should prepare themselves to respond.
2 Residents at the Kolam Ayer Emergency Preparedness (EP) Day were able to equip themselves with essential SGSecure core skillsets. These include CPR-AED, Improvised First Aid Skills (IFAS), Fire Extinguisher operation and Run, Hide & Tell protocol. Having residents trained in SGSecure core skillsets will enhance the community’s ability to respond to emergency situations in their daily lives and terrorist attacks should they occur.
3 Dr Yaacob joined residents to witness a “live” exercise simulating an attack by gunmen at the food centre. The exercise featured response operations by the Singapore Police Force’s (SPF) Ground Response Force, Singapore Civil Defence Force’s paramedics as well as the Kolam Ayer resident volunteers from the People’s Association Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) who performed CPR and first aid on the “injured” and demonstrated the “Run, Hide & Tell” protocol to send information about the incident to the police.
4 Everyone has a role to play in the SGSecure efforts. Dr Yaacob called on his residents to Stay Alert, Stay United and Stay Strong to cope with the threat of terrorism. He also urged residents to stay alert to signs of radicalisation in individuals and report them to the authorities. The media can rally the community together to overcome adversity as a nation. The Ministry of Communications and Information has worked with media partners to highlight the importance of SGSecure and the need to be vigilant and prepared through television programmes so as to reach out to more people. These include dialect programmes, “Eat Already” (Jiak Ba Buay in Hokkien) and “Happy Can Already” (Hua Hee Tio Ho in Hokkien) on Channel 8, and the Channel 5 programme, “Steady Lah!”.
5 The Kolam Ayer Emergency Preparedness Day is jointly organised by Kolam Ayer Emergency and Engagement Committee (C2E) and the People’s Association, with support from the Singapore Police Force and Singapore Civil Defence Force.