But it isn’t - thank goodness. Just a few months ago in April I remember clutching my head, mired in frustration as the pandemic swept across Singapore and the world, shrouding our social enterprise’s future in uncertainty. Fast forward to December, and I am so grateful for the tireless commitment of an entire ecosystem of folks working together to help Singapore emerge from this crisis stronger than ever - government leaders, healthcare workers, ground up initiatives, teachers and the like. And not forgetting my own team who rallied the best they could to transition Skillseed into the virtual realm.
I’m really happy to share that because of the support of our client partners and generous government grants, I managed to keep my promise to my team - maintaining their remuneration despite our losses in revenue, and fulfilling our commitment to bring in new team members whose contracts were signed way before the pandemic hit. Through the year, our team paid our blessings forward through various efforts such as our volunteer initiative to help the homeless during the Circuit Breaker,
7 main volunteers (Wilson is one of them), took on the roles of coordinating with the S3P leaders and getting feedback on meals delivered, budgeting, coordinating with local F&B providers and transport logistics on meals, creating collaterals for calls-to-action on donating supplies, acting as collection points for donated supplies, filtering, tallying and sorting out supplies and managing communications with contributors (donors).
appreciating Mentors through giveaways which we sponsored from a partner social enterprise during Teachers’ Day
One of the winners of our giveaway who received our gift on Teacher’s Day!
and most recently, running free community learning opportunities through an Educators’ Workshop.
Our giveback to the ever hardworking educators to spend some quality time with their family and explore their neighborhood, guided by our Skillseed trainers Dione and Raine!
We also organised our first ever virtual “Asset-based Community Development” Assembly, which received overwhelming support with over 100 folks from Singapore and SE Asia attending on a precious Saturday morning. We could not be more grateful for the support and positive feedback for our maiden attempt to bring together a community of folks interested in Developing Community as our Best Asset on a larger scale (DCBA, instead of ABCD - as reframed by Jason, one of our members in our ABCD Community of Practice)
Some heartwarming feedback we received from participants at the Assembly:
“The communication and link ups were seamless from the start, in signing up, building up momentum through posts / sharing information, all the way to the end!”
“I'm inspired by your passion and determination in what you are doing, and how your purpose is not just to help the community but show them that they have the capability to help themselves too with the assets that they have.”
“Thanks for organising this assembly, which I believe is a great source of information, network, and inspiration to me and my students (who are the youths of tomorrow).”
“Keep up the excellent work! Your camaraderie and love for one another is a delight to witness! Thank you for your generous sharing and please continue advocating for ABCD and sharing it with more people -- your collective work will brighten up Singapore in a positive way!”
In the new year, we are excited to continue our community building efforts so please let us know if you are interested in any of the following initiatives that we have planned for 2021:
Sneak preview of our virtual learning journeys focusing on the framework of Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) and around the following themes:
Ageing-in-Place
Social Inclusion
Environmental Sustainability
Piloting Virtual Overseas Experiential Learning Programmes
We are currently exploring with our overseas community partners on possible service learning projects that can tap on the skill sets of student volunteers and at the same time, be able to meet the needs/gaps of our host communities.
Knowing more about our ‘Resilience Guides’ initiative
A community initiative engaging individuals from under-resourced communities as guides where we envision co-creation and co-leading of learning journeys around their own communities. Through this, we hope to provide the guides a platform to share their stories with the public and also provide an avenue for members of these communities to gain dignified employment. In essence, these learning journeys are not of the under-resourced communities but with the under-resourced communities.
Finding out more about our new training modules:
Thriving teams: Instead of a self focused angle of ‘How can I be a good leader?’, we explore practical handles on how we can build better, together - nurturing teams that thrive and are grounded in social permaculture principles.
Design Thinking +: New! An added dimension to our usual Design Thinking for Social Impact module - Delve into the Value Proposition Canvas (VPC) to refine and achieve the fit between the value of your product / service to the requirements of your end-users.
Scarcity Mindset: Through a series of fun simulations, gain understanding that the scarcity mindset is a contextual issue that arises when we have less than what we feel we need, learn about how it affects our daily decisions and perceptions, and ultimately, find out more about how we can overcome the scarcity trap both in our own lives and in the wider community
We would love to explore partnerships and possibilities outside of these areas as well! And this includes inviting me to do stand up comedy. No kidding.
In the meantime, on behalf of my entire team, I would like to wish all of you a most blessed, peaceful and safe holiday season with your loved ones. May 2021 be the light at the end of this long, dark tunnel for all of us in Singapore and around the world.
Peace and love,
Huijia
“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”