It was the largest gathering in Singapore’s history of co-operative members, staff and their families as more than 15,000 people gathered at the ‘Co-opaliciouz’ event recently.
The evening also saw a record being set in the Singapore Book of Records with 2,750 fathers and children in total coming together to read Dr Seuss’ “Horton Hatches The Egg”.
Held at the Marina Barrage, ‘Co-opaliciouz’ was launched by President Tony Tan Keng Yam as Singapore celebrated the United Nations International Year of Co-operatives (UN IYC) 2012.
Organised by the Singapore National Co-operative Federation (SNCF), ‘Co-opaliciouz’ helped raise public awareness of the co-operative movement’s social impact on a country where one in three Singapore residents are members.
President Tony Tan launched Singapore’s first-ever legal tender stamps and First Day Covers on the cooperative movement’s milestones, which tell a compelling story of how co-operative social enterprises were formed to address social issues that had arisen in periods of Singapore’s history for over 86 years.
One of the milestones was the NTUC Seminar on ‘The Modernisation of the Labour Movement’ in 1969, which marked the birth of NTUC Co-operatives.
Shared SNCF Chairman Chan Tee Seng: “1969 was the `Modernisation Seminar’, where the trade unions decided to take a decision that goes beyond helping workers in the area of collective bargaining, into helping them to live a better life with a lower cost of living and have access to affordable goods and services.
“And since then, NTUC has ventured into areas like supermarkets, insurance, childcare services, healthcare services and today they are quite a relatively big part of the lives of ordinary Singaporeans.”
Also present at the event, Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports Halimah Yacob highlighted the important role that cooperatives play, citing FairPrice as an example which helps reduce the cost of living during a recession.
She said: “Whether it’s good times or bad times, co-operatives will be able to do that because of the model that they have, a model that’s based on membership, a model that gives back to its members as well as society at large.”
NTUC Co-operatives such as FairPrice and Income have stamped their mark internationally by being the only two Singaporean co-operatives that currently sit in the International Co-operative Alliance’s Global 300 List.
