Building a sustainable urban neighbourhood
1. Environmental stewardship
a) promote volunteerism among neighbourhood residents to share knowledge with others about the importance of healthy ecosystems
b) partner public and private stakeholders in environmental stewardship efforts
Promoting volunteerism among neighborhood residents
To share knowledge with others about the importance of healthy ecosystems.
This helps residents become more aware of what they can and should do to responsibly use and protect the natural environment.
For example, NEA encourages volunteers in communities by getting residents to lead eco-friendly lifestyles, and by taking ownership of their living environment.
Volunteers participate in public cleanliness events and raise public awareness on resource conservation in neighborhoods.
NParks also promote volunteerism in communities through ground-led initiatives such as Friends of the Parks.
Participants gain greater community ownership and stewardship of parks in their neighbourhoods.
For example In 2019, communities took part in the design, development and management of Singapore’s parks and green spaces, co-creating more than 50 parks across Singapore over the next five years.
Partnership of public and private sectors to contribute to environmental stewardship efforts
It is important that waste materials are recycled and residents, public and private stakeholders must all play their part in ensuring an efficient and sustainable waste recycling process.
National Environment Agency (NEA) should continue to engage residents on the importance of waste recycling as well as how and what they should recycle.
Residents play a vital role in the proper recycling of their waste.
Public agencies enhance awareness and education.
Private stakeholders provide recycling facilities.
Through this partnership, environmental stewardship efforts can be enhanced and sustained.
Promote volunteerism e.g. Clean and Green Singapore Experiences
From the clean and green Singapore website https://www.cgs.gov.sg/
The Keep Singapore Clean Movement
Citizen workgroup - zero waste movement
Nparks' Friends of the Parks program encourage participants greater community ownership and stewardship of parks in their neighbourhoods
Watch the video to understand more about waste management in Singapore.
2. Disaster risk management
a) reduce neighbourhoods’ exposure to hazards and the vulnerability of people and properties to hazards
b) improve residents’ preparedness in responding to hazards and implement monitoring and warning systems
What is disaster risk management?
• Refers to plans and actions that are implemented to prevent new risks from happening, reducing existing risks and manage disaster risks.
• This strengthens community resilience.
• Disaster risk management strategies help to build sustainable urban neighbourhoods and aim to reduce a neighbourhood’s exposure to hazards and the vulnerability of people and properties to hazards.
• For example, Singapore has a comprehensive disaster riskmanagement plan and focuses on emergency preparedness and response to natural hazards. The main agency responding to disasters is the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF).
• Town Councils also have the responsibility under the Town Council Act to cooperate with other government agencies and authorities in securing public safety and ensuring public order and preventing disease or injury.
• Disaster risk management strategies also focus on improving residents’ emergency preparedness in responding to natural and technological hazards and implement early warning systems.
• For example, the SCDF conducts a Community Emergency Preparedness Programme (CEPP), which focuses on key lifesaving skills and important emergency procedures.
• For example, SCDF has a Public Warning System (PWS) which is a network of sirens placed at strategic points thoughout the city.
• It warns the public of imminent threats that may endanger lives and property such as natural and man-made disasters.
• For example, SCDF also has an EMS Tiered Response Framework that manages the response to non-emergencies and emergency cases. The framework guides the matching of the scale of SCDF resources and response speeds to the seriousness of each call, prioritising more severe cases over less serious ones. Critically ill patients or those in life-threatening situations, such as people suffering from heart attacks or severe burns, will be prioritised and receive swifter and more enhanced medical services, compared with minor and non-threatening cases.
SCDF is embarking on a trial with HDB, town councils and Temasek Foundation to place and maintain one fire extinguisher at a lift lobby of every two HDB blocks for use by residents during fire emergencies.
Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/fire-extinguisher-hdb-scdf-2932516
3. Community resilience
a) strengthen relationships among residents and raise their awareness of potential hazards
b) develop residents’ ability to organise themselves and equip themselves with resources to resist, adapt and recover from a disaster
Strengthening relationships among residents and raising their awareness of potential hazards.
• Can only be effective and sustainable if there is a widespread support and long-term participation from the residents.
• Residents are encouraged to get to ‘know their neighbours’ so that they can depend on one another during an emergency.
• For example, the People’s Association (PA) organises a wide range of community activities aimed at fostering positive relationships amongst residents living in the neighbourhood.
• Some of the programmes include active, emergency preparedness and community sports - brining people of different ages and backgrounds together.
• The community resilience was evident throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as residents came together to provide assistance to others in need (e.g mask and food distribution).
• Another example is through HDB’s Build-A-Playground (BAP) project between mid-2015 and 2017, the project involved 1,800 people from residents living in neighbouring blocks of flats to the surrounding community, such as students from nearby schools.
• It resulted in an unique 185m2 treehouse-and-kelong inspired design.
• The involvement of the community in such a small, but integral infrastructure helps establish a greater sense of community ownership and community belonging.
• Besides the BAP, HDB’s Good Neighbours Movement (GNM) also strives to grow a community of great neighbours, where neighbours show one another mutual care and support, inspiring more neighbourly acts in the heartlands to make them better places to live in.
• It is important to note that neighbour relations are highly diverse, varying from one group to another and may also be occasionally be problematic.
Developing residents’ ability to organise themselves and equip themselves with resources to resist, adapt and recover from a disaster.
• Residents in the neighbourhood can be involved in an inclusive planning process that involves community leaders, civil society organisations and the government.
• When residents actively participate in projects to minimise potential hazards in the neighbourhood, they can better understand the risks and adaptation options to communicate to the planners and government.
• For example, in Singapore, Community First Responders (CFRs) volunteers are important in supporting the government in search and rescue operations, relief work as well as educating the public on simple first-aid and basic firefighting.
• The Community First Responders (Fire) are alerted to minor rubbish chutes and bin fires within their immediate vicinity and help put out the fires. This helps SCDF optimise its emergency resources to attend to life-threatening and other higher-priority cases.
• For example, the total defence is a framework for an all-round response to threats and challenges involving everyone in Singapore. It emphasises that everyone has a part to play, individually and collectively, in building a strong, secure, and cohesive nation.
