Fostering a shared sense of purpose

Singapore

EXPRESSING our relationship with death through poem, song, art and dance; sampling juices blended from ugly fruits and learning about food waste in Singapore; and playing games to deepen our empathy towards seniors, single parents and patients with aphasia. (see amendment note)

These were some of the activities that took place at the second edition of A Good Day, a ground-up event organised by A Good Space, which consists of a community of social changemakers creating experiences to help the public expand perspectives across diverse social issues.

Anthea Ong, co-founder/founding curator of A Good Space, said: "A Good Day is a microcosm of what Singapore can be on any given day: a community that makes an effort to learn about each other and support one another in an organic way that deepens the human connection and personal agency. For how can there be a real community unless the very people in it who have needs are supported by the people in the same community with resources, who may also have needs that the former can support?" The 51-year-old Nominated Member of Parliament added that it's this interdependent relationship is what makes us citizens with a shared identity and purpose.

The inaugural edition last year started out as a social experiment, to encourage citizens to collaborate and organise innovative activities that would move fellow Singaporeans to care about different social issues and communities. And this year, the event attracted over 120 people on July 13.

Vincent Ng, junior curator of A Good Space, said: " At A Good Space, we intentionally encourage different social changemakers and community builders to come together and co-create with each other because we believe that social issues are interconnected, and much social innovation can be had with such cross pollination of ideas and knowledge. Creating a space of trust for diverse changemakers to step out of issues they are familiar with, to learn about each other's communities and how they can collaborate to design an innovative activity was an interesting challenge for us."

A Good Space therefore organises bespoke community events such as A Good Day and A Good Pitch for companies and organisations in a bid to spur such conversations and awareness about social issues. He added that as a small team with few resources, they also had to tap the resources of changemakers such as SerendipET, an outdoor education and events company, who gave support in designing the event and sourcing for sponsorships and volunteers.

Howard Chiu, an educator who participated in a role-playing game adapted from the popular Dungeons and Dragons, designed to help players understand the choices and circumstances faced by youths-at-risk, said: "For us with privilege it's easy to follow the law and get on with life but today's activity helped give me a bigger perspective as to why youths at risk or marginalised groups may engage in high risk behaviours because they could be motivated by incentives that we don't normally see."

Amendment note: The activities listed in the first paragraph at A Good Day this year was in fact last year's. The article has been amended to reflect this.