Upholding honour in everyday life
Non-profit organisation Honour (Singapore) shows how it lives up to its name
When you act with honour, you always strive to do the right thing, regardless of what others are doing - that is what Mr Lim Siong Guan, 74, tries to live by every day.
And it is also why, in 2014, he set up Honour (Singapore), a non-profit organisation whose outreach strategy includes providing thought leadership on honour to various audiences through forums, symposiums, workshops, short films and other platforms. As its name suggests, Honour (Singapore) hopes to promote a culture of honour and honouring, integrity and trust, which Mr Lim believes is key to Singapore's continued survival and success.
Mr Lim is a professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and has served in the Singapore civil service for 37 years. He says: "Honour does not make a product. We do not deliver a service. We promote the virtue of honour.
"To maintain peace, harmony and stability, there must be a national consensus that all things are done with a view to enhancing the well-being of the nation, not just for the current, but also the future generations. There must also be a strong vein of honour and mutual respect between individuals, even when there may be sharp differences in views."
Since its beginning, Honour (Singapore) has reached out to over 250 organisational leaders at its biannual Leaders Forums. It also hosted Honour International Symposiums in 2016 and 2018 that were attended by distinguished local and international speakers, such as President Halimah Yacob and former Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma.
Honour (Singapore) has also led dialogue sessions with civic society and community interest groups, and connected with 5,000 students and 150 educators through Honour Learning Journeys. These 90-minute programmes screen short Honour films such as Builders, Dinner and Lullaby - inspired by real-life incidents symbolising honour through integrity, hard work and perseverance in the face of adversity - and are meant to spur conversations on character, citizenship and values among the students.
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Mr Lim's organisation has also contributed to the arts, such as the Honour Film Initiative, which supports young local film producers to make short films depicting the practice of honour in different facets of life.
To date, the initiative has supported more than 30 films that have garnered over 10 million cumulative views on social media - including the most-watched film When The Stars Align, a documentary about Singapore's first female Olympian Tang Pui Wah, who represented the Republic in the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, and the true grit she exemplified.
The organisation was named a Champion in last year's Brands For Good 2020 awards, under the Leadership For Good category.
Sowing the seeds for the future
During the Covid-19 pandemic when mass events and live shows could not be held, Honour (Singapore) continued to reach out with its projects.
Mr Lim says: "We conducted webinars on The Future of Leadership and Winning with Honour that reached out to some 1,000 participants, including civil servants, business leaders, young professionals and polytechnic students. We also conducted virtual fireside chats with our Youth Chapter, our CEO-Founder Chapter and an Honour organisation in Ghana."
Honour (Singapore) has also already rolled out its 2021 campaign, starting with What Next? - a workshop that hopes to obtain participant consensus on what a sustainably successful Singapore needs to be like, so that next-generation Singaporeans can be the best they can be according to their talents and abilities.
Mr Lim says: "Some needs for the long term may well take 20 or 30 years to bring about. The idea of What Next? is to help participants think long term without being distracted by the challenges we face now, personally and nationally.
"Honour is all-encompassing. It is about thinking of the well-being of others whose lives are affected by our thoughts and actions because they are worthy of our respect and concern. The prevalence of honour means their lives are enhanced and stress is reduced by knowing that their family, the community, their employer and the government care about them."
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