Channel NewsAsia 4 Dec 07;
SINGAPORE: The Outward Bound Singapore (OBS) plans to expand its training activities beyond Singapore to countries as far as Croatia.
It said this is one way to overcome the limited space available for training activities on Pulau Ubin.
This was revealed at the OBS' 40th anniversary celebrations attended by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday.
The OBS trains about 23,000 youths and adults every year. There are plans to include even more people. But the school has limited space to do this.
So it is trying to come up with an innovative approach. This includes training in waters off Pulau Tekong and the Southern Islands. As for overseas training, OBS is looking beyond Malaysia and Indonesia to countries such as China, India and even Croatia.
Nicholas Conceicao, director of Outward Bound Singapore, said: "We are exploring these three countries because, as you know, China and India are increasingly being countries which schools are looking at.
"China, especially, is partnering many schools in Singapore. Croatia is an interesting example because there are new schools being set up and OBS is actually playing a role in mentoring the set up of the new schools."
He also said that Croatia offers a good training area for OBS trainees because the climate there is very compatible with Singapore's.
As for its premises on Pulau Ubin, the OBS plans to develop more training activities in areas which were previously untouched, such as disused quarries. There, activities such as quarry jumps are being considered.
Prime Minister Lee believes the OBS can overcome the problem of limited space available for its training activities.
Mr Lee said: "These are all ingenuity challenges that we have to overcome and I think we will overcome, because we would like more of our students, more of our people to come and attend and have this experience which will leave them changed, not just physically fitter but mentally tougher and more cohesive as a team and, I think, with memories that will last them a lifetime."
That's what Mr Lee himself experienced 40 years ago. To relive those moments, he had the chance to sail on board a cutter, and got reunited with the instructor who trained him. He is Mr S Puhaindran, a former OBS instructor who was also at the anniversary celebrations.
Mr S Puhaindran said: "He (Mr Lee) mixed well with the other students. That made it easier for me. I was apprehensive because knowing his background, I thought it might be difficult for him to mix with people from the other sex... his own school, it was a boy's school."
On Tuesday, the OBS also unveiled its new logo, with colours that represent nature, life, adventure and courage. - CNA/ir
PM remembers the day he got lost in Punggol
That was in 1967 when he and other 15-year-olds were attending OBS
Peh Shing Huei, Straits Times 5 Dec 07;
WHEN Mr Lee Hsien Loong attended Outward Bound Singapore (OBS) in 1967, he and his mates had to dash through rural Punggol and navigate checkpoints without a compass.
In a place dotted with pig farms, unrecognisable from the new town it is today, the group of 15-year-olds failed in their task.
'We got lost,' he admitted self-deprecatingly yesterday to much laughter.
Returning to OBS as Prime Minister to celebrate its 40th anniversary, he reckoned that today's youth would probably have a far easier time.
'Today, I think it is very difficult to get lost in Punggol because if you get lost, you go to the light rail, you follow the tracks and it would take you to the next station,' he said.
Even on Pulau Ubin, where OBS is located and which is just a 15-minute boat ride from Punggol, it is quite difficult to get lost these days.
'It is quite a crowded place. You have tarmac roads...you have road signs. It's not as much of wilderness as we would like it to be,' he said.
'But with some ingenuity and some effort, we can make the best of what we have.'
It is what OBS is already doing - taking some of its annual intake of 23,000 participants beyond its Ubin home ground.
A programme to paddle to Batam and back will kick off next year.
More exciting challenges are also lined up for participants in China's scenic Guilin area, the Himalayas, and even in Croatia.
OBS will also have more activities in other parts of Singapore, making use of nature reserves and also of Pulau Tekong and the Southern Islands.
Of course, it also wants a slice of the new Punggol 21-plus, aiming to 'chope' or reserve, as Mr Lee revealed, some space at Punggol Point Jetty when the new town is rejuvenated as a coastal suburb.
This would beef up OBS' presence on mainland Singapore.
And it will also allow more Singaporeans to try the climbing, jumping and even 'flying' - on the Flying Fox apparatus, of course - that the OBS is famous for.
'We would like more of our students, more of our people to come and have this experience which would leave them changed - not just physically fitter but mentally tougher and more cohesive as a team and with memories which would last them a lifetime,' Mr Lee said after a two-hour tour, during which primary school pupils greeted him with the Mexican, or perhaps in this instance, the Pulau Ubin Wave.
Mr Lee's 17-day course four decades ago certainly left an impression on him.
His then-OBS instructor, Mr S. Puhaindran, now 71, remembers him as a boy who didn't give trouble.
'He mixed very easily with the other people. He did everything that everyone else did and never complained. After a while, the other students all forgot that he was Lee Kuan Yew's son,' said the veteran Marine Parade grassroots leader.
As for the little misadventure in Punggol, he said: 'They were quite happy and they laughed it off.'
