Disability Sports Master Plan 2024 - Creating a more inclusive Singapore through sport

Speech by Mr Edwin Tong, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth & Second Minister for Law, at the Singapore Disability Sports Award Ceremony on 20 November 2024

Charting the Next Bound of Inclusivity Through Sport

Mr Eric Chua, Senior Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Culture,
Community and Youth, & Ministry of Social and Family Development,

Dr Teo-Koh Sock Miang, President of the Singapore Disability Sports Council,

Ms Ho Ching, Chairman of Temasek Trust, Patron of SDSC,

Mr. Brian Loo, Group General Manager of Haw Par Corporation,

Ms Rachel Tan, Senior Director for Group Internal Audit of Tote Board,

Community and Corporate Partners,

Athletes and Caregivers,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Introduction

1. A very good evening to all of you. Such a real pleasure to see all of you, and it is wonderful to see so many familiar faces from our disability sports community as well.
2. I think we are all here because we believe in the transformational power of sports.
1. Through sports, we grow stronger, not just physically, but also mentally. We learn to face and overcome challenges, sometimes within ourselves and other times, together as a team.
2. We also foster a deeper appreciation and respect for one other when we win with grace and lose with honour, regardless of our abilities.
3. That is why sport has this unique power and ability to drive inclusivity and build a stronger society with tighter bonds.
3. Our vision is to chart our next bound of inclusivity through sport, where more members from our disability community can be engaged, enriched and empowered through sports.
4. We want sports to be a platform for persons of all abilities to engage with each other and create shared experiences.
5. We want to tap on sports to enrich the physical and socio-emotional well- being of persons with disabilities. Ultimately, cultivate positive values associated with sports, such as discipline, resilience and grit.
6. For those who have the desire and potential to do sports at a much higher level, we want to empower them to be the best version of themselves, to reach and realize their aspirations.
1. We know that many of our most successful athletes first started taking up sports not because they aspire to be top-class, high performance, or podium-finish athletes, but as a starting form of therapy - whether to strengthen their muscles, improve their cognitive abilities, or even simply to build up their own confidence on a level playing field in the water, on the field, or in the courts.
2. Para-athlete Sophie Soon says this best: “When I swim, I feel a sense of independence and freedom which I never get to experience on land. When I’m walking about, I'm always either relying on my guide dog, a white cane, or a sighted guide to assist me in my mobility. But when I swim, I do it all on my own and I love that I get a moment of freedom by myself.”
3. And I think this nicely encapsulate what it means to not just take part in sports, but to feel a sense of liberation, a sense of self-esteem, and a feeling of oneness with everyone else around you.
4. This initial exposure to sport sometimes transforms into something bigger but regardless of whether they do or not, I believe that sports will continue to empower persons with disabilities and help them realise their potential. And I believe almost no other platform can offer this kind of ability, like the platform of sports.
7. With this vision, we can write stories that will inspire a nation. Take Gemma Foo as another example:
1. At the age of seven, Gemma was first exposed to riding as a therapy at the Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA) Singapore. Soon, her physical and cognitive abilities improved and she also found her confidence and mettle as an individual.
2. Then, she turned her love for para-dressage into a competitive career in 2008. She made her debut in various international competitions. Since then, at her young age, she has participated in four Paralympic Games, with Paris being her most recent one. Confident, self-assured, inspiring to many others. Today, Gemma is the 2 nd ranked Para-Equestrian athlete in Asia.
3. Gemma’s story is just one of many stories. There are many others with different backgrounds and in different sports, but you will find the same inspiring story behind each of them.
8. And these stories serve as a reminder of why we must find ways to scale up our efforts, to support a robust sporting landscape where persons of all abilities can come together as one and be exposed to sports.
1. We must find a way to sustain their participation in sport as a lifelong endeavour. Never mind that they do not make it to the podium, or maybe not even achieve success as a Team Singapore athlete - I think we have done something great by being mere participants in sports.

Progress of Disability Sport in Singapore

9. The disability sport movement in Singapore has been steadily gathering momentum since.
1. We hosted the 8 th ASEAN Para Games in 2015 that involved over 3,000 athletes and officials from the region and saw 4,300 members of public signing up as Team Nila volunteers to support this milestone event. And I think we left a legacy simply by hosting the 2015 ASEAN Para Games.
2. That same year, the first inclusive gym opened at the Enabling Village, where our disability community can work out and participate in sporting activities and programmes alongside our seniors and everyone else in the wider community.
10. Then, in 2016, we launched the first Disability Sports Master Plan – our DSMP version 1.0.
1. We outlined 18 key moves then that have since guided us in strengthening our entire disability sport ecosystem to enable persons of all abilities to come together and live better through sport.
11. Today, we can see the fruits of the 2016 DSMP – let me spend a few moments to quickly elaborate on where we have come since 2016.
12. First, we now have more accessible sports facilities for our disability community across the island.
1. Compared to 2016, we now have seven more inclusive ActiveSG gyms and we are on track to make all 27 ActiveSG gyms inclusive by 2026.
2. We have also retrofitted eight ActiveSG swimming pools with wheelchair ramps, with plans to retrofit two more pools by 2025.
13. Second, we have expanded opportunities for our disability community to compete in sports.
1. We have done so by introducing para sports into the Singapore National Games, which is now known as Pesta Sukan. I think many of us are familiar with growing up with Pesta Sukan. Today our disability community can take part in Pesta Sukan as we once used to be able to do.
2. We have also launched the Play Inclusive movement, where participants both with and without intellectual disabilities, can come together, play on the same team and share important sporting and competition experiences. These are very powerful experiences.
14. Third, we have seen more support from our community and corporate partners in organising disability sport programmes.
1. For example, RunningHour, an inclusive sports co-operative. They organise inclusive sports events and offers fitness training to the visually impaired, and integration trainings and workshops for institutions and corporates. Looking after not just for the disability community, but looking after the broader community, so that we can really say that we are an inclusive community.
2. Another example is PlayBuddy, a free and volunteer-based programme for children with disabilities to learn and play diverse sports on a regular basis.
3. It is sometimes easy to do it on an ad-hoc or once-off occasion, but I think we need to make this a part of the way we are conditioned, part of our way of life, and to make this a regular occurrence.
15. Fourth, we have built a strong system of coaches with better and broader abilities,
1. SportSG and SDSC regularly conduct disability awareness and technical coaching courses and workshops - this is important because we sometimes take for granted that if you are a good coach for the ability group, you will naturally be a good coach for the disability group.
2. We want people who are conditioned and trained to understand the field of play for disability sport.
3. Coach Singapore has incorporated a topic on inclusive coaching into its Level 1 curriculum across all sports. These are part of the movements that we want to make to regularize and normalize training for disability sport coaching.
16. These efforts have paid off.
1. We have seen an increase in sport participation rates amongst persons with disabilities from 28% in 2015 to 46% in 2023.
2. I know these are but numbers, but they give us one indication. And I think we must remember to move beyond numbers to look at what is happening on the ground, to look at the lived experiences, and to also take on board anecdotal experiences as the dossier of our progress.
3. More specifically, we have also almost tripled the participants of the Play Inclusive movement. It is not just persons with intellectual disabilities coming out to play, but they take part in a unified fashion, with persons of all abilities coming together. And I think that experience is invaluable as we begin to shape our community and drive inclusivity in a strong and sustained manner.
17. As we grow this base, with more people taking part, we will naturally see more in the pipeline, by way of high-performance career athletes we also must do as much as we can to support these athletes in their pursuit of sporting excellence.
1. We have expanded support in several ways:
1. First, we introduced the spexScholarships in 2013, and we also went upstream by introducing the spexPotential programme last year. Both of these schemes are important - they enable our para-athletes to receive funding and sport science support in their sporting journey.
2. We also launched the ActiveSG Para Sport Academy in 2022 to provide more opportunities for young para-athletes to train under qualified coaches and realise their sporting potential. To date, over 400 participants have taken part in programmes at this academy.
18. This support meant that Team Singapore can, and will in future, be able to reach greater heights.
1. We now have 40 carded para-athletes, 11 para-spexScholars and 2 para-spexPotential - I don’t think we have had greater numbers than this in the past.
2. We have also consistently performed well at the ASEAN Para Games. Most recently, at the 2023 Cambodia ASEAN Para Games, we returned with 44 medals, 17 Personal Bests, 16 National Records and 9 Games Records – not bad for a small country like us, but I think we can do more.
3. At the recent Paris Paralympics, we came back with a historic haul of 2 Golds and 1 Silver - we have never done as well and this tells me that the headroom for growth, and potential to reach even further is within our grasp.
19. We will also be hosting the World Para Swimming Championships 2025. This is a signal of how important we look at para-sports. We want the best of para-sports in the world to be right here so that our own athletes have better opportunities to take part in these events and that the world knows that we take para-sports very seriously.
20. The growth of our disability sport landscape, whether in participation or in podium successes, did not happen by chance. It happened because of all of you, the different stakeholders around this room tonight - our sponsors and donors, our community partners and volunteers, our athletes, their parents and caregivers, our coaches and sport scientists, and our friends in the media.
1. Collectively, this is the village that has made para-sports successful. I want to pause here and ask all of you to join me to thank them profusely – all of you have made this journey really worthwhile, and I thank you very much from the bottom of my heart.

Highlights of the SDSA

21. Today, we are gathered to recognize some of you, and celebrate your impact in driving disability sport in Singapore.
1. In the Sports category, we will honour 7 award recipients, who have demonstrated exceptional athletic achievements or excelled in nurturing our para-sporting talents.
2. Whilst in the Community category, we will recognize 7 award recipients, who have gone way above and beyond to foster a culture of inclusion in disability sport.
22. I would also like to take the opportunity to welcome the Tote Board as our new supporter for these awards. They will complement the efforts of our steadfast supporter, Haw Par Corporation, who have consistently made invaluable contributions not just in financial resources, but through your support in person and in growing our disability sport ecosystem.
23. Thank you both for making the Singapore Disability Sports Awards possible, and my warmest congratulations to all those who will be receiving awards later!

Creating a More Inclusive Singapore Through Sport

24. This evening, I am heartened, thrilled and excited to be able to stand here and make a few announcements on what we are going to be doing about DSMP 1.0.
1. We started this eight years ago and we spent almost the last two years thinking about what else we could do and how much further we could go.
25. And this evening, I am ready to stand before you to make a few announcements on what we will be doing and demonstrate firmly the Government’s commitment to invest in enhancing the disability sport ecosystem. We recognise deeply that sport can be a strong enabler for inclusivity, which can leave a long-lasting and deep meaningful impact. Not just at the individual level amongst all of us, but at the broader societal level - changing the way we behave, changing mindsets and being stronger in the mindshare.
26. So, in 2023, we started to think about how we could update the DSMP. We had very good results, but we felt that the time was right to really make a push and go beyond this.
27. With this in mind, we set up the Enabling Sports Taskforce,
1. Comprising representatives from MOE, MSF, SG Enable, SportSG, Singapore Disability Sports Council (SDSC), Special Olympics Singapore (SOSG) and former athletes, and chaired by Mr. Eric Chua, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Culture, Community and Youth and Social and Family Development.
28. We wanted to really hear from each of you on the ground and how you responded to DSMP 1.0.
1. So, this Taskforce engaged 850 stakeholders over the past year - from persons with disabilities and their caregivers, to community partners and sport coaches, sport scientists - all of whom gave us invaluable insights and ideas,
2. They told us about the challenges that they face day-to-day and the opportunities they also saw for the growth of Singapore’s disability sport landscape. I was there at some of these Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and I can attest that the stakeholders were really passionate and forthcoming, and had some good ideas to lend to our constructive masterplan.
3. The taskforce took all of this back, brainstormed, understood the perspectives and insights, and decided to refresh them into the form of a DSMP 2.0.
4. This refresh was really created with the community and that is a very important part for us - that it is not just top-down, but it was very much ground-up. Understanding the challenges and the trade-offs, understanding what we could do now, and what we could not do now but could be parked away for the future, and understanding deeply what were the day-to-day challenges that each of you faced in different ways.
5. And I am pleased and excited to officially launch the fruit of all their labour – the DSMP 2024!
29. The DSMP is not only about increasing opportunities for persons with disabilities through sports, but also about including the wider community to learn about diversity and for them in turn to embrace acceptance and foster closer and deeper partnerships in this disability space.
30. To achieve this, DSMP 2024 outlines ten key moves that we will make.
1. We have heard our disability community’s feedback - we know that the needs are diverse, we know that the experiences are different to different extents, some are more acute than others.
2. We have done our best to ensure that these ten moves are broad and as far as possible, all-encompassing.
3. It helps us to shape mindsets rather than be prescriptive about steps to take. They are not meant only for specific disability groups, but to cater to the varied needs across the spectrum so that we can meet the needs of as many persons with disabilities as possible and make a wider impact on society.
31. To better illustrate this variegated nature, let me frame these ten moves into three broad strategic themes:
1. First, to increase accessibility to disability sport activities and programmes, we think that the base can grow a lot more and we will benefit from that.
2. Second, to enhance awareness of disability sports and inclusive sports activities,
3. And third, perhaps not so tangible, but equally important, is to find ways to tell stories and to fulfil aspirations of our persons with disabilities and treat them as part of our community. And when we say one Team Singapore, we mean one Team Singapore.
4. Let me take a few moments to explain each of these thrusts.
32. The first about accessibility.
1. We want to ensure that as many of our persons with disabilities as possible can realise there is something for them in this sporting landscape. Even after their time in structured programmes within schools have concluded, we want them to come back.
2. So, we will do this in 3 ways:
1. First, SportSG, SDSC, SOSG and Deaf Sports Association (DSA) will expand the capacity of their regular disability sport programmes from 3,200 to 5,400 by 2030.
• This expansion will be complemented with better outreach efforts so that it is not just a numbers game.
• For instance, every SPED school will be encouraged to appoint a coordinator, so that as much as we decentralise, there is also a central control and cohesion. This coordinator will help to connect students to community sports programmes and activities, based on their individual strengths and interest.
2. Second, we will increase opportunities for our disability community to compete at the community-level by hosting parallel competitions alongside existing and well-known platforms, such as the National School Games, Inter-Special Education (SPED) School competitions and National Family Week,
• We want to also extend funding support to organise the SOSG National Games.
3. Third, we will do more to enhance our ActiveSG facilities to better support individuals with different disability types.
• We will start by piloting a calm room in some ActiveSG Sports Centres by the end of 2025.
33. The second theme relates to enhancing awareness.
1. We want people to know about and take part in disability sport, to create a greater understanding of disability sport from a young age so that it becomes intuitive, and develop the knowledge and skills to play and enjoy sports with persons with disabilities, or in unified teams.
2. Again, we have set out 3 ways to achieve this:
1. First, working through the school. A lot of our stakeholders in the discussions have told us that the best place to start is really with the schools – which have the broadest, widest reach.
2. So, we will work with MOE to ensure that all 340 mainstream schools will conduct at least one disability sport programme by 2028.
• This will allow students to experience disability sports from a young age. To socialise this, to normalize the fact that we are taking part in a disability sport, and in some ways, for our children to remove the barrier and awkwardness that we might sometimes face.
• There is no ill intent, but sometimes they just cannot quite figure out how to behave or conduct themselves and I think we need to normalize this a lot more.
3. Second, we will scale up Play Inclusive to more than double its current event outreach by 2030 so that persons with and without disabilities can have more meaningful interactions through sport.
• Through this, we want them to build relations and foster friendships that will stay with them throughout life.
4. Third, we will amplify publicity efforts of our disability sport athletes, beyond those at the high-performing level.
• It is important to tell stories - each one has an inspiring story to tell, whether you are on the podium or otherwise, and whether you take part in high-level, elite competitions or otherwise.
• To inspire more persons with disabilities to participate in disability sport, we want these stories to encourage the wider community to contribute back to the disability sport ecosystem.
34. The third and final theme relates to fulfilling aspirations and realizing the sporting ambitions of persons with disabilities.
1. As I said, when we grow the base, we will find that more will occupy that pipeline and create an avenue for us to excel at disability sports at the highest level.
2. Our para-athletes have already done Singapore proud in several Major Games. But I think we can do more and build on this success by providing even more support to develop our current para-athletes and expand the base of our para-sporting athletes.
3. We will do so in 3 ways:
1. First, we will establish a National Training Centre (NTC) for para-sports, within the Home of TeamSG (HTSG) in the Kallang Alive precinct.
• Our Prime Minister announced this very exciting project at his National Day Rally speech a couple of months ago.
• This NTC will be focused on para-sports, you will have your training centre right where everyone else trains, with sport science support, with the NSAs and SDSC present to support the administration.
• And to ensure that if you need rest, you can simply hop across to rest. If you need nutrition, you will be able to access nutrition and if you need anything, it is all in one space.
• The NTC will be dedicated and integrated with sport science and medicine capabilities, unleashing the potential of our para-athletes.
2. Second, we will set up Para Sports Community Hubs (PSCH) across the island.
• Any robust high performance sporting system must have a strong community base.
• These hubs will serve as focal points to engage newcomers or sports enthusiasts in various disability sports and through this, grow the base of aspiring para- athletes.
• The first 5 hubs will be established by the end of this year. They will be in ActiveSG sports centres in Bedok, Delta, Jurong West, Pasir Ris, and Yio Chu Kang.
• Each sport centre will focus on a different sport so that we can centralise resources, build expertise and leverage on economies of scale, nd ultimately provide the best high-performance pathway in each of these centres, for each sport.
• We hope that the disability community will join our activities at these hubs, hone their skills in the sport they love, and maybe even transform their passion into a competitive sporting career.
3. Third, we will aim to enhance the pool of our professionals in disability sport.
• This is the village – everyone behind the scenes. Those who are not in the pool, not on the track, not on the field, and not in the arena, our coaches, sport scientists and doctors – they are equally important.
• We want to ensure that they are well-equipped and trained to effectively engage and support our disability community well.
• We intend to more than double the number of registered coaches who can coach persons with disabilities by 2030.
• We will invest in training, and make sure they are properly certified and registered, and that they will serve our disability, para-sporting ecosystem very well.
35. From our engagements, many of our stakeholders have also told us about the high financial costs, and this sometimes can be a barrier for our disability community to come and participate in sports.
1. For instance, some sports do have highly specialised equipment, which can be expensive to replace or purchase.
36. To provide more financial support to meaningful initiatives, we will launch a new Enabling Sports Fund.
1. We are targeting to raise $10 million by 2030 for this Fund, with government matching donations dollar-for-dollar,
2. This Fund will support community-initiated disability sports programmes, such as the SOSG National Games, which is held once every 4 years.
3. Social service agencies, with whom our disability community is very much in touch with, can also tap on this fund to cover their expenditures such as for sports equipment purchase, coaching fees and transport support to run sport programmes for their beneficiaries. We will support you on these day-to-day, last mile connections.
37. All in all, this DSMP 2024 encapsulates our vision for a sporting ecosystem that not only accommodates differences but in my view, also celebrates them.
1. Where people of all abilities will be able to truly engage in sports, at whatever level they choose, be enriched through the experience of sports, and be empowered by sports. It will power you in ways that you could not have imagined.
38. I would also like to reassure all of you here that DSMP 2024, much as we are very proud and happy, it will be a live plan, a constantly iterative plan.
1. Because we know it is constantly evolving as we chase one target and as we close off the loop on one road, others might appear or maybe unintended obstacles might appear.
2. So, we have designed this to be iterative, to be live, to be dynamic, and as responsive as possible to the varied needs on the ground.
3. As I said earlier, this plan may not cover all the varied needs of our disability community today – it is as far as we can meant to be a broad, whole-of-society plan so that we can gain Singaporeans’ mindshare and support about the plan, and drive inclusivity through the plan.
39. So, we want to build in some responsiveness. In doing so, we have deliberately set up two committees to run this.
1. We will have the first one that will gather feedback from stakeholders, representatives and corporates, while another to drive coordination across agencies and work through implementation obstacles on the ground.
2. These two committees will work in tandem – one having the broad oversight of the overarching philosophy and the masterplan, and the other being very much present on the ground, navigating as it were.
3. Through this, we think we can drive this plan, not just in concept but really by operating it well on the ground.

Conclusion

40. I would like to conclude this speech with a quote from a para-athlete that we are all familiar with:
1. In her book, Pin Xiu said: “There is nothing we can’t do, if we work side by side.”
2. And I think this is, in many ways, the key philosophy behind the DSMP 2024. It captures our approach for the future of our Disability Sports Master Plan because the growth that we want to see, the push that we want to make, and where we want to end up cannot be done by one individual, one party, nor one organisation but collectively taking the whole village - every one of you in the audience tonight, plus more, must come along with us on this ride. And I think when we come together, we can go much further.
41. As we stand together in this important moment for the future of our disability sport journey, where we not only celebrate our award recipients for their dedication, resilience and excellence, but we can also collectively commit to chart the next bound of inclusivity through sports with DSMP 2024.
42. As I close, I want to share one of my favourite photographs from Paris Paralympics. I was privileged to be right here, by the side. I did not take this photograph – I wish I did, but it is my favourite photograph because this was right after Jeralyn played a brilliant match-winning shot. A picture of sheer, unrestrained joy and triumph – in that moment, there is no disability.
43. So, our plan, through DSMP 2024, is to create as many of these moments as possible for as many people as we possibly can – to inspire a generational shift in mindset, in attitudes and in approach toward inclusivity.
44. And if we can achieve this through sport, I think we can build a much better Singapore for all.
45. Thank you very much.