OUR CORE PURPOSE
Skillseed’s core purpose is to help build a trust-driven and collaborative society, alongside our different partners.
OUR PEOPLE
Our people are purpose-driven learning experience designers, facilitators, as well as community and partnership practitioners.
our BELIEFS
We believe that all co-creative endeavors will be made more inherently sustainable when guided by authenticity, relationality, dignity, empathy and a strengths-based approach. Ownership, and ultimately, deep trust, would be natural outgrowths of this paradigm.
OUR EFFORTS
For our partners, we design and facilitate experiential citizen engagement courses, and sustainable development immersion programmes.
Our community building and capability development efforts contribute towards the accomplishment of UNSDG goals No. 4 (Quality Education for all), No. 10 (Reduced Inequalities) and No. 17 (Partnerships for the goals). Read more about Our Impact here.
WHY SKILLSEED
We constantly innovate by translating practical experience gained alongside our communities into operational knowledge and learning content for partnerships and citizen engagement. In parallel, we apply knowledge gained from research to our community work.
Through this, we have developed a holistic methodology to build trust-driven and collaborative communities. This helps to forge a society that moves forward together.
the skillseed story
Learning from Experts
Skillseed’s roots trace back to a once empty, light-filled space at Kroon Hall of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. On her first day in the United States, a starving Singaporean female graduate student searched desperately for a canteen or a café in her graduate school - only to find a vending machine.
Annoyed, she wrote a proposal for an environmentally and socially conscious café at a beautiful spot at Kroon Hall. The Dean of the school, however, very kindly reviewed it and pointed out that she: 1) Had no prior experience running a café 2) Was an international student and this was her first time in the States, and 3) Had no background in business at all!
Not giving up, she rewrote the proposal and approached the dean again, who told her that he would approve the proposal if she could find other students to join her and an expert advisor from the Yale School of Management (SOM) to guide her. At that time, she knew no one, yet at the end of two weeks, she managed to gather a team of 6 Masters students and a lecturer in Entrepreneurship from Yale SOM to embark on this crazy endeavour. With guidance from these experts and peers, she proceeded to live her dream through real-world learning.
Live your Dream
They soon found themselves simulating a café from scratch to prove that the model worked – the group composted the coffee grounds, sold only locally-sourced goods and fair trade coffee, and even learned to be baristas! The café also served as a platform to showcase the wonderful social and environmental initiatives that their peers were doing (fair trade chocolate, an environmental film festival etc.). This was in addition to their full-time studies and the founder’s part-time job at the financial aid office. But it was an incredible, hands-on experience and imparted the founder many real-world skills that still serve her well today.
Leave a Legacy
Many years later, the once empty space is now better known as BYO café, run by students passionate about good coffee, great food, and most of all, making a social impact, as it sustains itself as a small institution that supports social and environmental initiatives while providing for students on financial aid.
This experience is proof that a single person with a good idea, the help of others, role models, courage and humility, can help to transform a community, one project at a time.
Skillseed was born out of the power of this experience and learning framework. This means carving out a safe space to generate opportunities, to provide exposure and challenge individuals to dream big, and empower them with the tools to make the changes they want to see, regardless of where in the world they find themselves, and how daunting the environment may be.
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