By Raine Ong
A Skillseed Fellow, rediscovering her purpose as she moves towards the big three in her life. She has a passion in youth development and enjoys the outdoors and singing in her free time.
Our first internal trial for our signature ABCD virtual walkshop (Raine, top left)
Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) is a term I was familiar with but I have never seen how it can be applied until I joined Skillseed last September. At the core of what we do and what we believe in, everyone carries inherent gifts within themselves. In the projects we do, we consciously put on the ABCD lens and apply it within our team as well as with our clients and community partners.
If you’re new to this term, ABCD is simply a way of seeing - imagine a cup that is not just half full or half empty but instead full of water and air molecules. We discover gifts and assets within ourselves before discovering those within our communities and the environment.
Application of ABCD in Skillseed
Before the pandemic, I had the opportunity to design a Skills-Based Experiential Learning Programme (ELP) for a group of tertiary students. Applying the ABCD lens, I started by doing an asset map of the participants, asking questions such as “What do the students learn about?; what might they be good at?” We assess the strengths of the students before determining a possible community partner and project that they can collaborate with. This allows the team to design win-win collaborations between our participants and community partners, where their strengths would complement each other and contribute meaningfully to a service project.
Through this process, we developed the ‘Education for Empowerment and Equality’ service project that aims to tap on our participants’ strengths in communication, writing, and presentation skills. By sharing their knowledge in these areas, our participants will be able to help build up the capacity of the migrant youths from our community partner. On the other end, the migrant youths will also share their aspirations, local insights and cultural traditions with our participants. We hope that this service project will come to fruition when travel re-opens next year.
Transforming during COVID-19 and the ‘new normal’
In unprecedented COVID-19 times, we all have to get used to the “new normal”. At Skillseed, our team had to pivot and innovate our courses. By applying an ABCD lens to this crisis, we saw it not as a disruptor but as an opportunity for us to reinvent and reimagine ourselves. This has nudged us, in the last few months to be able to create blended and fully virtual experiences of our course offerings.
I was grateful to be given the opportunity to re-design and virtualise one of our signature ABCD walkshops. Our walkshops are a blended experience of a workshop coupled with a learning journey. When circuit breaker started, we noticed the rise in family tensions and concerns about mental well-being. With working from home being the new normal moving forward, we asked ourselves this, “how might we apply the ABCD lens to support individuals and our communities during this season?”
With that in mind, we put on our creative thinking hats to redesign our ABCD Walkshop - Backyard Exploration from the comfort of our own homes. This walkshop focuses on discovering gifts within ourselves, our household as well as our immediate community and neighbourhood. It is comforting to know that I can be grateful for what I have and who I have around me, and appreciate the beauty I never knew existed within my own community and neighbourhood. While taking one step at a time, these discoveries sparked joy within me and anchored gratefulness in my heart. Despite living in somewhat challenging times, I am grateful to be alive, and to be able to make small positive changes by designing meaningful walkshop experiences.
Join me as we (re)discover the treasures within ourselves, our household and our community.
What are you grateful for today?
Skillseed now offers experiences virtually, including our signature walkshops! If you’ve always been curious about Skillseed, but have yet to give us a try, we’ve got you covered! Enjoy 15% off the usual price if you book our Walkshop before 30 September 2020. With limited availability, indicate your interest here and our friendly Skillseedees will get back to you with more details.
References:
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/30-rise-in-inquiries-to-msf-on-family-conflicts