One leads to the other — the tripartite relationship between Placemaking, Community Building, & Social Wellness.

Just last month, we organised and ran our first wellness day retreat — A Mindful Kampong — alongside some small businesses in our district in a bid to organically activate and engage the communities in neighbourhoods that matter most to us. We did a short recap of what went on after the retreat concluded and in that previous piece, we briefly touched on the topic of Social Wellness. In hindsight, we felt that there was much more we had to say on the topic.

Placemaking

Before we start on the topic of Social Wellness, we wanted to revisit our placemaking journey — something that led us to discover social wellness as an important component of a healthy and functional society.

One might view some placemaking efforts as simply attempts to create more recreational avenues for individuals to have fun within alternative neighbourhoods and spaces in Singapore. That’s not exactly wrong. To date, our efforts have been tailored towards gathering people within the spaces we love to do fun things. 

However, our definition of placemaking extends beyond that. 

From our perspective, a ‘Place’ is one that is shaped by the living beings that dwell within it — the communities that live, work, and play within the environment is what ultimately defines it.

It was with this understanding that we first began drawing people into our neighborhoods while creating reasons and encouraging them to return on a regular basis. We hoped that by infusing the neighbourhoods with the energy brought on by these fresh faces, we could breathe life into and shape these districts with the parts and personalities of the various individuals.

It’s like a social experiment of sorts — one that is still ongoing even today.

Community Building

Our approach to community building took shape with the realisation that people are drawn to other people. 

Perhaps it’s a human thing — we are, after all, social creatures. Introverts & extroverts alike, after a certain point, we begin to crave the presence of other human beings. Even if that simply means being in the same space while being in our own heads.

We focused on bridging the gap between individuals through our community activations, supporting them in forging bonds with another, while simultaneously finding  a sense of comfort and belonging in the neighbourhood environment.

In this way, we sought to give people reasons to return to a place, again and again.

Social Wellness

While it was not something we set out to do, along the way, we discovered and grew to become very interested in  social wellness — something which we, in our previous article, defined as the ability to build and maintain healthy, respectful, and positive relationships with those around us. 

Our efforts in community activations led us to realise the importance of social connectivity and having programmes tailored towards building social connection amongst individuals of all walks of life. In our research, we also rediscovered the impact that the absence of such offerings could have on society. Particularly, on the members of vulnerable communities: the elderly, the disadvantaged, as well as youths-at-risk, just to name a few. 

A brief seach of the internet quickly reveals that for the elderly, isolation and a lack of community translates not just into a deeply felt sense of loneliness but also into a genuine fear of being put in a vulnerable situation at home and being unable to receive help in a timely manner. 

The internet is rife with such articles — elderly folks afraid of dying where no one can see them and choosing instead to loiter in void decks where they have a greater chance of receiving help.

For folks like these, having social programming creates avenues for them to gather and connect for positive reasons. For the elderly community, such programmes are also crucial in that they help in preserving the cognitive health of the elderly individual and reduce the risk of dementia.

Cultivating and celebrating a culture of community not only enlivens a neighbourhood, it also presents real value to the people living within it, and to society at large. In turn, having a community that is “socially well” also increases the value of a place.

As we continue on our placemaking and community building journey, the insights we glean and learnings from our endeavors continue to grow and strengthen our resolve to continue on with our efforts.