National Campaigns
Various national publicity campaigns were launched by the Singapore Government in the mid sixties. These included the “Keep Singapore Clean and Mosquito Free”, “Garden City”, “Family Planning”, and the “Postal Savings” campaigns.
“It is not enough to have a thriving society. There must be style to it…Our attempts to make Singapore a Garden City are designed to enhance our aesthetic sense."
Then Minister for Foreign Affairs S.Rajaratnam on the dangers of brittle urban materialism
May 6, 1970
Garden City
The “Garden City” campaign was launched by the government in mid 1967 to create a holistic green environment. Part of the campaign involved planting more flowering plants, trees and shrubs in the city and suburbs, alongside roads, landscaping of circuses and traffic islands, planting of hedges between buildings and maintenance of parks carried out by the Parks and Trees Division to beautify the environment.
Click here to see a video on tree planting in the 1960s.
Singapore’s title as “The Garden city” came about with the continual development of the ‘clean and green’ campaign along with anti-air pollution measures.
Family Planning
With the high rate of increase in population, family planning and population control became a major concern. The government wanted to encourage Singaporeans to have small families for social and economic benefit. As such, a White Paper was set up outlining a 5-year national programme on family planning. Subsequently, the programme was implemented by The Family Planning and Population Board which was established in January 1966.
During the publicity campaign month, there were talks and interviews over Television, Radio and Rediffusion on family planning. Benefits of family planning such as the ability to limit and space one’s family to suit one’s personal and financial circumstances, were also discussed.
As a result, a significant fall in birth rate was observed by 1970. Out of a total of 180,000 new family planning acceptors laid down in the five-year plan, 153,000 women have accepted family planning by the end of October 1970.
Photos and video courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.
Back to latest post