JULY 2023 - CNA'S “GETTING REAL ABOUT TRUST” DOCUMENTARY

Skillseed's founding director, Huijia, was featured in a recent CNA documentary, titled "Getting Real about Trust". She was invited to share how trust is able to bring communities together, as exemplified through our flagship programme, Resilience Trails. The documentary also featured our community guide, Lydia, who shared about her own lived experiences in the Ang Mo Kio neighbourhood and how she has witnessed trust blossom within shared spaces. We are thankful to have this opportunity to showcase the work that we do!

Huijia sharing about how trust can be built in community spaces

Catch Huijia and Lydia in this episode via the MeWatch website, from 19:47 minute to 23:05 minute.

JULY 2023 - INTERVIEW AT CNA'S LEADERSHIP SUMMIT

Besides being featured in CNA’s “Getting Real about Trust” documentary, Huijia was also invited to CNA's Leadership Summit on the 27th of July. As the first speaker to be featured, she shared about the importance of trust in our ever-changing world, and the various types of trust that are relevant in today's society. Huijia also had the opportunity to hear from fellow leaders about the applicability of trust across various sectors during the panel discussions and speeches. Watch the interview here, or via this link (5:00 minute to 10:17 minute)!

JUNE 2023 - FEATURED AS MSF’S SOCIAL SERVICE PARTNER

Skillseed is honoured to be featured by MSF as part of this ‘Year of Celebrating Social Service Partners’ campaign 2023, for making a great impact in the lives of friends with disabilities, single mothers and other individuals from under-resourced communities in the work that we have done.

Check it out here!

JUNE 2023 - Resilience Trail in Partnership with NCSS and MOHT’s Design4Impact 3

It was an honour for Skillseed and our Community Guides to have been a part of the Design4Impact 3 journey through our Resilience Trails programme. The Design4Impact Ecosystem is a collaborative platform hosted by NCSS and MOHT, where social innovators gather and share ideas, knowledge, and resources on the social and health care sectors in Singapore. 

As part of the programme, participants embarked on an experiential walking trail of empathy and empowerment centred around the lived experiences, strengths and interests of our Community Guides, who are from under-resourced communities. We are grateful that many of them took away key insights from the experience that fed into their own social innovation solutions to help support vulnerable families in our society. We are even more heartened to hear that a key takeaway from participants is that our solutions of today need to incorporate and promote the agency, assets and voice of the very people we aspire to help. 

Many thanks to NCSS for this meaningful partnership, and we encourage anyone who is interested in being part of this ecosystem to find out more at their website here. Do spot our Resilience Trails segment featured from 1:15 to 1:56 in the video as well!

Watch the full video here.

10 April 2023 - Feature Article with RICE Media:

Photo by RICE Media

Our Founding Director, Huijia, shares how Skillseed works with our communities to establish a safe space -- one that emphasises care, safety, communion and relationality.

In Resilience Trails, we engage vulnerable communities such as persons with disabilities or friends from under-resourced families to co-create and co-facilitate learning trails in their own neighbourhoods. Beyond our external partnerships, Huijia also shares how we establish a work environment in Skillseed that goes beyond a "safe space" to a "brave space", where people can voice their opinions that may be controversial or thought-provoking, in a way that is still relational and kind.

As Skillseed turns 10 years old this year, we want to continue to build collaborative communities of deep trust by focusing on local community initiatives as well as partnering organisations to equip participants with community and citizen engagement skills.

"Our core value is to let communities who care about the work, own it and grow it." - Huijia Phua

Read the full article by RICE Media here.

JUNE - JULY 2022 CSC EMPOWERED TO LEAD PROGRAMME

Our Director, Wilson, was invited to speak to the participants of the Empowered to Lead Programme (EMLP) organised by Civil Service College (CSC) on 22 June and 20 July 2022. The EMLP is a 7-week milestone programme that aims to equip new middle managers in the Public Service with the necessary skills and knowledge on leadership, governance and public policy.


Wilson candidly dialogued with participants on the challenges and opportunities of collaborative governance. Drawing from Skillseed’s community experience, he further explicated the five key competencies of authenticity, empathy, relationality, effectiveness and consistency to build trust - the cornerstone of collaborative governance.

MAY 2022 raiSE ‘Reimagine’ Programme

Skillseed founding director Huijia and co-director Wilson were invited as speakers for raiSE’s Reimagine programme, which helps SSAs, Non-Profits and SMEs to develop into Social Enterprises. Specifically, they were invited to share on the segment on Social Enterprise Models and Operationalisation.

17 December 2020 Empowered to Lead Programme (EMLP)

Skillseed founder Huijia was invited as a speaker for the 12th Empowered to Lead Programme (EMLP) on “Collaborative Governance and Its Implications”. The EMLP is a milestone programme designed to equip Public Service middle managers with a better appreciation of their new leadership context and role, and the key skills they need to navigate this new context.

Here’s what participants had to say about her sharing (as per organization feedback):

“Participants found you very inspiring and really appreciated your candid sharing of real-life examples to illustrate the concepts. Some of their key takeaways included a better understanding of what collaborative governance means, recognising the need for a mindset shift in their current approach with public engagement and the importance to bring in the relational aspects to build a sustainable partnership between the government and organisations/civil society.”

31 Mar 2022 nus senior alumni tea session

Skillseed founding director Huijia was invited by Mrs Carmee Lim to share more about Skillseed and one of the core frameworks (Asset-based Community Development) that undergirds what Skillseed does at the NUS Senior Alumni Monthly Community Tea and Chat session. Huijia also shared more about one of Skillseed’s new community initiative - the Resilience Trails. More info can be found here.

Check out the original Facebook post here

october 2020 “Total Defence for a Future Singapore”

Our founding director, Huijia Phua, shares her thoughts after she was invited by Nexus (We Are Total Defence ) to participate in the first small-group, in-person engagement session with Senior Minister of State for Defence and Manpower, Mr Zaqy Mohamad on the topic of 'Total Defence for a Future Singapore.'

Check out her reflection post here

14 OCTOBER 2020 catalySE

Our founding director, Huijia was invited as one of the speakers for Day 2 of the CatalySE series, a webinar series that aims to help bridge the gap by educating students and young professionals about how social enterprises can create change and the SE landscape in the region, as well as what it’s like to work in an SE, the various challenges SEs face, and hopefully inspire the audience to get involved and create change in their own ways. 

Huijia shared how Skillseed manages trade-offs between the business element and social cause, as well as how to grow and scale a SE among other topics to give a better understanding on how social enterprises operate and thrive.

Check out the original Facebook post here

SEPTEMBER 2020 SG TOGETHER CONVERSATIONS

Our Founding Director, Huijia was invited to participate and share her thoughts at the ongoing series of SG Together Emerging Stronger Conversations (ESC). Topics discussed included providing more support for the ‘sandwich segment’ of parents with younger children, addressing the stigma behind mental illness, lowering the barrier of entry for youths to further pursue their passions, and improving inclusivity as a nation.

"We all have the power and capability to touch lives, and it doesn't have to be on a grand scale." - Huijia Phua

Check out the original Facebook post here

MAY 2020 CSC LEARNING FUTURE GROUP’S ROUNDTABLE

Skillseed is grateful to be part of Civil Service College’s Learning Futures Group's Roundtable which was held on 15 May and hosted about 140 participants. Our Director, Wilson Chan was one of four panellists who shared his thoughts on learning in the virtual space. Here are 3 key ideas he shared, framed around the alignment of head, heart and hands:

“𝐖𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 in the intelligence of our audience and the process that we’ve designed. This means allowing the learning experience to reveal the lessons, rather than telling participants what the learning outcomes are.”

“𝐻𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑓𝑢𝑛. Treat every session like it truly is - an experiment. This releases us to focus on facilitating our audiences’ learning and enjoyment, rather than delivering.”

“𝐏𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 every single element. We use a few apps / platforms, embedded within the experience, to change the pace and activity. When there’s a transition, we test and coordinate between trainers as seamlessly as possible.”

Check out the original Facebook post here

january 2020 csc cross-sector leaders programme

Huijia, our Founding Director, was deeply honored to be part of the 7th Cross-Sector Leaders Programme that took place at the Civil Service College (CSC) from 13th to 16th January 2020. It was an amazing opportunity for Skillseed to learn from our leaders from the public service in their respective fields (from geopolitics to social cohesion). We also befriended key representatives from other sectors, including the media, unions, academia, and the private sector, and gained a better understanding of realities from their perspectives. 

Find out more about Huijia’s takeaways on the programme here

JAN 2020 MEETING WITH MINISTER HENG SWEE KEAT AND DESMOND LEE

Skillseed is deeply grateful to have been invited as a community partner and given the opportunity to share our Skillseed story and heart to Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, Minister Desmond Lee and our friends in the social sector during the opening launch. We are excited to see our story resonating strong with the shared vision of SG Together.

As Skillseed’s founding director Huijia shares:

“This picture – it’s not about me shaking DPM’s hand. Of course I am so thankful for the recognition, but we should be excited about this picture because it’s about how different partners across different sectors- GIC, our government leaders, Beyond Social Services, Very Special Arts, and we at Skillseed, have been working together to make the SG together vision a reality on the ground in our various capacities. And a commitment that we will continue to build this shared future for all our loved ones, for Singapore.

And if I ever forget and think Skillseed is all about me, then one of you better wake me up and remind me why I had started Skillseed all these years ago. To be, on the ground, planting seeds of skill and change in our communities. Yes, we deeply appreciate recognition, but that is not what we work for.”

Read the original post here!

JUNE 2019 ASIA-PACIFIC REGIONAL CONFERENCE ON SERVICE LEARNING

Skillseed had the honour of presenting a paper alongside our SPD sister Kanitha and advisor Professor Dennis Lee at the 7th Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Service-Learning, held at SUSS. The paper, entitled "Youth-with-Theseabilities", described our experience designing and leading YDP II, the 6-month long inclusive service-learning program that we organised in collaboration with SPD, and the insights that we gleaned from the experience. We are thankful for the opportunity to share the amazing work of the participants and mentors with a wider audience!

Check out the original Facebook post here

JUNE 2019 ECO STAR OF ASIA AWARD

Our founder, Huijia Phua, was honoured as the Eco Star of Asia at the Global Green Economic Forum Women Eco Game Changer Awards 2019. The GGEF Women Eco Game Changer Awards are the first and only awards in Asia that give recognition to women who are leading and inspiring change, making an impact in the community and environment through innovation.

Despite the recognition, Huijia emphasised that the Skillseed team doesn’t do the work they do for accolades but they were, of course, grateful for the recognition.

“We’re simply being honoured on behalf of all the wonderful community partners we’ve been working with. In other words, we’re sharing this honour with them.”

Ultimately, Huijia is grateful for the continued opportunities to work with their partners in an effort to empower their alumni; supporting them as they fulfil their natural potential as changemakers.

“During the ceremony, they interviewed me to ask where I see Skillseed in two years. I said to her: ‘We’ll do what we’ve always done - plant seeds of change and empowerment in all of our program participants and partners. We’ll continue to plant more seeds, with the hope that they’ll take root and grow in the hearts and minds of our alumni. Soon they’ll be the ones winning awards like this, not us.”

Check out the original Facebook post here!

4th april 2017 'hello singapore 狮城有约'

Skillseed founder Huijia shares her motivations behind setting up Skillseed, while our alumni Lim Wei Jie tells us more about the good work he has gone on to do after joining one of our courses. Our friendly Course Architect Pua Xin Er also speaks about some of her most memorable experiences in Skillseed, in her first-ever 'live' interview! (We apologise for the lack of English subtitles.)

The extended episode also features our exciting collaboration with SPD, where youths are learning hard and soft skills to craft sustainable projects that will make mainstream society inclusive for people with different disabilities. We are extremely proud of our young but very accomplished participants and Yale-NUS facilitators!

We would like to say a big thank you to the producers and film crew for accommodating our schedules and for being such lovely people, and for the wonderful opportunity to be part of this series alongside other inspiring social enterprises in Singapore.