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The Tampines West Experience

08 July 2010 4 comments

Grassroots leaders together with the Adviser to the Tampines West grassroots organisations strongly believe in achieving more by leveraging on partners as outreach multipliers.  With the combined expertise and resources of grassroots organisations and other partners and stakeholders in the community, the grassroots organisations can do more and multiply the positive outcomes of building social capital and getting the community more engaged.

The key partners Tampines West grassroots organisations have engaged are the schools, community service and religious organisations in Tampines.  The grassroots organisations leveraged on their strengths, especially their circle of influence, to complement grassroots outreach programmes.  The grassroots organisations have gone beyond their normal practice by leveraging on the resources, expertise, brand name and sponsorship of their partners to explore new possibilities.  With more partners, the grassroots organisations are able to introduce new flagship community programmes, form new interest groups and organise more and better courses for residents.

Tampines West has successfully introduced various flagship programmes, such as the Annual Sports Carnival with the schools, Weiqi Tournament with the Singapore Weiqi Association and the Youth Engagement At Heartlands (YEAH), a fun and exciting amazing race for youths, with the Singapore SOKA Association (SOKA) and Darul Ghufran Mosque.  Tampines West has also worked with schools to form a Balloon Sculpture and Magic interest group and start various sports interest programmes.  They have roped in SOKA for the formation of a Culinary Club.  In addition, they collaborated with the Mexican Embassy in Singapore to showcase Mexican dance at one of its community events.  As a spin-off to the partnership, the wife of the Mexican Ambassador conducted a series of Mexican Cuisine courses at the CC.

Working with the various partners, Tampines West grassroots organisations have the opportunity to reach out to more people of different backgrounds, including those whom they do not usually attract to their activities.  However, their experience shows that partnerships may not work out well when the key stakeholders try to achieve too many diverse objectives.  All stakeholders must be clear about the objectives, outcomes as well as their roles and responsibilities before the start of the project.  There is also a need to choose appropriate and good partners and manage their expectations from the beginning.  Careful planning and negotiation with potential partners are needed.  Tampines West division strongly encourages all constituencies/ grassroots organisations to identify their own community partners and leverage on their expertise, strengths and resources to achieve our overall social capital objectives.

The story of how Tampines West grassroots leaders work with key partners to achieve greater outreach is the last in a series of six stories on our grassroots leaders’ journey towards realising the Vision for the Community. 

Read the other stories here:

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