Community Engagement Festival (CE Fest) 2019

Community Engagement Festival (CE Fest) is CAPT’s annual flagship event which aims to celebrate the uniqueness of different communities, through community engagement and relationships forged with our partners. On 22-23 March 2019, over 200 CAPTains and 160 community partners took part in 12 trails focusing on meeting, engaging and learning from the communities on the ground.

The theme for CE Fest 2019 is “Pulse – discovering similarities amidst differences”. Through CE Fest and our interactions, we aimed to look beyond labels, stigma and differences between communities and individuals. While our pulses may differ in frequency and volume, the theme highlights how we are all equal. Pulse is something we all have regardless of age, nationality, race, occupation, status and circumstance. At the core, we are all humans; no different from each other, no better than one another.

The trails we had this year include Balik Kampung, Conversations in Chinatown, Dumpster Diving, Geylang Streetwalk, Intergeneration, Kayaking Orientation, Migrants Tour Package, Mortician Services, Sungei Buloh, and more.

In the Migrants Tour Package, the team worked with SG Accident Help Centre and organised a tour around Marina Bay area for injured migrant workers. One of the participants of the tour shared, “The insights I have gained from this trail will definitely change the way I interact with migrant workers to uncover the story that each migrant worker has behind, which may indeed be quite personal/unique/sentimental. I would try to engage more actively with them even though they may seem shy and timid superficially.”

A teacher from Greendale Secondary School whose students are part of the Kayaking Orientation shared that “It was such a privilege for the students to have been able to be part of the kayaking orientation trail. In their reflections, students mentioned that they used to take for granted how beautiful Singapore’s landscape is. Through intentional mentorship the trail, students were able to notice and reflect on the importance of greenery in Singapore’s cityscape, and also appreciate the effort put into maintaining the waterways of our city. Some of them said that they can do their part of their environment by reducing plastic waste! The students were also surprised to learn about the other interesting trails, such as dumpster diving, homelessness in Singapore, and the outing with migrant workers. CE Fest was truly an eye opening experience for them. Thank you all for the wonderful CE experience. The students enjoyed it tremendously and learnt alot.”

The communities we worked with this year were communities that were either part of CAPT’s modules or were one of our engagement partners. Through further partnership with these partners, we hoped we drew a link between formal and informal learning in CAPT and that all participants of CE Fest 2019 found the same pulse, discovered similarities amidst differences.