The Red Box Project : a campaign to engage Singaporean youth in total defence

Abstract

This paper discusses the Red Box Project, a youth-focused charity collection and volunteer mobilization drive in aid of less fortunate children in Singapore. Taking place in January and February 2010, the Project was part of the 2010 nationwide campaign for Total Defence, entitled “I Will”, the basic message of which was to challenge Singaporeans to pledge to take active steps in contribution to Total Defence. The Project’s role in the campaign was to serve as a “showcase” pledge to highlight the essence of “I Will”, with youth in the Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) as the target audience. Beyond achieving the output objectives in terms of the quantity of donations collected and volunteers recruited, the Project provides a strong case study for the examination of the potential and effectiveness of youth-oriented causes as a tool for reaching the youth segment with a government message. We discuss the results of our campaign and subsequently the insights that these results provide into the state of understanding,appreciation and internalization of Total Defence among Singaporean youth. We also examine how the Project may demonstrate how an appealing and unique youth-focused campaign, in this case a social cause, could possibly be leveraged to impart lessons or messages about Total Defence and National Education to the youth, especially in the light of this generation’s resistance to messages originating from the government (Livingstone, 2007).