[Music]
good afternoon everybody my name is
Henry I’m here to talk about effective
effecting change through listening many
of us be sitting here are changemakers
and when we want to make change we have
a lot of passion I’ll say that a
defining characteristics of a change
maker is somebody who have a very strong
view on what they want to see in the
world and they go in to try to make that
change a bit more mark myself I started
as a volunteer since I was a student in
2015 I was elected member of parliament
and a neighbor called urban borough
Herman Barrow is a constituency of
40,000 residents and like many other
places we have the needy among our myths
and what I do is that together with
hundreds of volunteers and professional
social workers we try to help the needy
so today I’m here to talk to you not in
my capacity as a member of parliament
but in my capacity like you being a
change maker now the traditional concept
of change making is to come in guns
blazing and in fact change but even at
best this approach have limitations
why because even if we succeed we are at
best
artificial touches that the community
would rely on which means that if we
exit from the scene the change might not
be sustained rather I see a better way
of effecting change is for us as Street
makers to come in
unleash the energy within a community
unleash it because within the community
is not just just the needy but the
capacity for change and the wisdom to do
that and the way to unleash this is by
listening by listening to our
beneficiaries by listening to the
community and by listening to the
changemakers with it let me share with
you a particular experience that I’m
sure it resonates with many of you one
day
after a very long extensive effort to
distribute groceries to many of our
needy a few of our volunteers and myself
sat down at a coffee shop
suddenly one of our volunteers Marilyn
she said this looked at this out
unconsciously Henry how many cigarettes
do we end up paying for today are we
helping them are we killing them what
does she mean by that well some of you
may be aware that we give out groceries
we could give out grocery belches to the
needy in Singapore but what sometimes
happened in some cases is that some of
the beneficiaries they take that
vouchers that grocery voucher and then
they buy cigarettes and in the berry
beer and they drink away and smoke away
so that kind of behavior made our
volunteers disillusioned they wonder
whether or not they are helping the
right people they wonder whether they
are helping people in the right way so
at that point I tried to reassure them
that we’re doing things the right way
but in my heart of hearts I do know that
I had no answer
so then I spent months working by
volunteers to experiment different ways
Charles and errors and we realized that
the power is really true the power of
listening three ways listen to the
community since 2015 I’ve gone through
every household of kaboom borrow my
constituency at least three times when I
go there and visit with my volunteers
what we do is rather than just say hi
and bye we try to understand our
neighbors our residents who lives there
what did they do what a needy among this
block where are the socially isolated
elderly state where are the
special-needs children staying where are
the people of financial difficulties
trained and what we do is also to stop
take the community resources for example
where the teachers stay who’s the former
policeman who’s the taxi driver who are
the nurses who wants to step forward and
help our community and when we have to
understand the needs of our community we
then can come up with very specific
programs in the last one year let me
give you some examples we can offer free
legal clinic for residents we came up
with home delivery service of cooked
food to the frail elderly we came up
with uplifting programs for the young
poor so and many other more but what is
more precious than this program is it
stems the flood of disillusionment among
the volunteers and we actually were
dealing with a flood of volunteers
coming in and it also aligns everybody’s
vision because we as a group were out
there listening to our community and
so the community through the same lenses
so that was the first point about
listening to the community the second
point I’d like to make is listening to
the beneficiaries this is a picture of
madame ism she’s the lady in the middle
she has three she’s a single mother she
has three young kids and she has an
ailing mother on the other side we
started a program to help out young poor
break off the poverty cycle so what we
do we do we try to make sure that they
learn effective parenting skills they
try to get good jobs and we try to make
sure that the kids go to good
kindergarten and sure that they go to
after-school care make sure they have
tuition it sounds like a great idea
right except it really wasn’t why do I
say that because when we try to reach
out to families like madam isms family
many of them didn’t want to come down we
caught them we visit them we back them
they just didn’t come down then we went
to madame ism and listened to her and
she shared about her particular
viewpoint
she is the sole caregiver of so many
people in her family and the reason why
she’s not ballast because the kids do
not want to come down therefore what we
did was in response design a Kids
program so that the parents are coming
down and then there’s somebody taking
care of the kids but then the kids were
not happy because they were really
bought so what we did is we experimented
a lot to make sure that the kids are
something interesting you do any
eventually we found something that they
like which is doing arts and then
something beautiful happened first the
kids enjoyed themselves then
kids bring and drag their parents down
then the parents became good friends
very soon we found that we had a very
strong support network of single mothers
who supported each other they even
exercised every week together and
together they want to be more than just
beneficiaries but also be change makers
this is a picture of Marilyn ISM after
the program instead of being a batch the
beneficiary she said that she wants to
help and this is her trying to manastar
cell passing free clothes to her
neighbors who are needy and this would
not be happening if we didn’t listen to
the beneficiaries the third point I’m
trying to make is that we must listen to
the change maker within and so saying
earlier this is essential to unleash the
power of the community so within
kabamaru Institute a new system where
every new person volunteer coming in we
have in-depth conversation with them to
understand what changed to you today we
want to see in the world and how can we
work with them to achieve that change
not just that we used to talk to her is
this thing changemakers and tap on their
ideas to follow on the story about the
program I did mention that we have a
fringe program for kids right after the
program ended the changemakers came in
through a post-mortem and to us that
they want to do more how the origin idea
was that making sure that the kids from
needy families have enough can keep up
through tuition true true
let’s say after-school care true
kindergarten actually that was not good
enough because if you start life too far
away from the starting point from the
rest just trying to keep up is not good
enough
what my changemakers to me was this if
you want them to truly fight the way
pass the poverty cycle pass the glass
ceiling
we must inspire them to passion and
therefore it is important to have a
talent discovery and telling a passion
program so that they can we can assemble
a group of people talented in different
views organize the kids find the talent
in the kids so that death Helen and that
passion will propel them to fight
through incredible arts in life and so
today we are working on a program to do
exactly just that cumulating in a kid’s
camp and the kids performance with the
objective of not just letting the
students the kids exhibit the talent but
more importantly to allow the parents to
see the passion and to be encouraged by
that this is a mock-up website of a new
effort that we’re doing it is called hop
collective by lunch we have by now 15
grown-up initiatives focusing on social
work in Cuban borough we feel that not
just by listening we have to empower our
changemakers so we created this platform
for residents to come in to think about
all the causes that can volunteer also
for fellow changemakers to come in to
understand what resources are available
to change make and we are also making
sure that even for people who don’t see
a cost that currently associate that
with they have the toolkits to come in
and empower them after the toolkits to
change the community so some of this
ideas that come out ah
for example they want to form a group
called tech for good to use technology
to help community Saudi programs they
are coming up is also an incubation
service
for other change making efforts from the
ground up and we are just getting
started so I’d like to conclude this
story about listening by a sharing of it
an interesting and adult that I but from
another TED talk there’s a TED talk by
Italian change maker he was into
development they ate in Africa and he
was part of this group where they would
transfer the best know-how from Italy to
Zambia
so the Italians were extremely
passionate about a practical cost
growing excellent beautiful big Tomatoes
so do they brought this a wonderful idea
over to the Zambians and for some
reasons the Zambians didn’t bite on this
idea but never mind the changemakers
persisted and in the end they succeeded
in growing big fat beautiful tomatoes
until the hippos came in at all of them
of course the italians were really upset
with the hippos and they asked his
ambience why didn’t you tell us that in
zambia he posts eat tomatoes then the
Zambians responded but you didn’t ask
you didn’t ask
it’s the same as saying you’re not
listening so all around the world change
makers are beginning to understand and
tap on the power of listening so I hope
that when we go back after the talk
today whether or not we are trying to
affect change in the community on the
business or in in the personal space
when we want to do so let’s not charge
in with a preconceived notion but focus
on listening because it matters and your
shape the way in which we want to change
the world and thank you so much for
listening
[Applause]
good afternoon everybody my name is
Henry I’m here to talk about effective
effecting change through listening many
of us be sitting here are changemakers
and when we want to make change we have
a lot of passion I’ll say that a
defining characteristics of a change
maker is somebody who have a very strong
view on what they want to see in the
world and they go in to try to make that
change a bit more mark myself I started
as a volunteer since I was a student in
2015 I was elected member of parliament
and a neighbor called urban borough
Herman Barrow is a constituency of
40,000 residents and like many other
places we have the needy among our myths
and what I do is that together with
hundreds of volunteers and professional
social workers we try to help the needy
so today I’m here to talk to you not in
my capacity as a member of parliament
but in my capacity like you being a
change maker now the traditional concept
of change making is to come in guns
blazing and in fact change but even at
best this approach have limitations
why because even if we succeed we are at
best
artificial touches that the community
would rely on which means that if we
exit from the scene the change might not
be sustained rather I see a better way
of effecting change is for us as Street
makers to come in
unleash the energy within a community
unleash it because within the community
is not just just the needy but the
capacity for change and the wisdom to do
that and the way to unleash this is by
listening by listening to our
beneficiaries by listening to the
community and by listening to the
changemakers with it let me share with
you a particular experience that I’m
sure it resonates with many of you one
day
after a very long extensive effort to
distribute groceries to many of our
needy a few of our volunteers and myself
sat down at a coffee shop
suddenly one of our volunteers Marilyn
she said this looked at this out
unconsciously Henry how many cigarettes
do we end up paying for today are we
helping them are we killing them what
does she mean by that well some of you
may be aware that we give out groceries
we could give out grocery belches to the
needy in Singapore but what sometimes
happened in some cases is that some of
the beneficiaries they take that
vouchers that grocery voucher and then
they buy cigarettes and in the berry
beer and they drink away and smoke away
so that kind of behavior made our
volunteers disillusioned they wonder
whether or not they are helping the
right people they wonder whether they
are helping people in the right way so
at that point I tried to reassure them
that we’re doing things the right way
but in my heart of hearts I do know that
I had no answer
so then I spent months working by
volunteers to experiment different ways
Charles and errors and we realized that
the power is really true the power of
listening three ways listen to the
community since 2015 I’ve gone through
every household of kaboom borrow my
constituency at least three times when I
go there and visit with my volunteers
what we do is rather than just say hi
and bye we try to understand our
neighbors our residents who lives there
what did they do what a needy among this
block where are the socially isolated
elderly state where are the
special-needs children staying where are
the people of financial difficulties
trained and what we do is also to stop
take the community resources for example
where the teachers stay who’s the former
policeman who’s the taxi driver who are
the nurses who wants to step forward and
help our community and when we have to
understand the needs of our community we
then can come up with very specific
programs in the last one year let me
give you some examples we can offer free
legal clinic for residents we came up
with home delivery service of cooked
food to the frail elderly we came up
with uplifting programs for the young
poor so and many other more but what is
more precious than this program is it
stems the flood of disillusionment among
the volunteers and we actually were
dealing with a flood of volunteers
coming in and it also aligns everybody’s
vision because we as a group were out
there listening to our community and
so the community through the same lenses
so that was the first point about
listening to the community the second
point I’d like to make is listening to
the beneficiaries this is a picture of
madame ism she’s the lady in the middle
she has three she’s a single mother she
has three young kids and she has an
ailing mother on the other side we
started a program to help out young poor
break off the poverty cycle so what we
do we do we try to make sure that they
learn effective parenting skills they
try to get good jobs and we try to make
sure that the kids go to good
kindergarten and sure that they go to
after-school care make sure they have
tuition it sounds like a great idea
right except it really wasn’t why do I
say that because when we try to reach
out to families like madam isms family
many of them didn’t want to come down we
caught them we visit them we back them
they just didn’t come down then we went
to madame ism and listened to her and
she shared about her particular
viewpoint
she is the sole caregiver of so many
people in her family and the reason why
she’s not ballast because the kids do
not want to come down therefore what we
did was in response design a Kids
program so that the parents are coming
down and then there’s somebody taking
care of the kids but then the kids were
not happy because they were really
bought so what we did is we experimented
a lot to make sure that the kids are
something interesting you do any
eventually we found something that they
like which is doing arts and then
something beautiful happened first the
kids enjoyed themselves then
kids bring and drag their parents down
then the parents became good friends
very soon we found that we had a very
strong support network of single mothers
who supported each other they even
exercised every week together and
together they want to be more than just
beneficiaries but also be change makers
this is a picture of Marilyn ISM after
the program instead of being a batch the
beneficiary she said that she wants to
help and this is her trying to manastar
cell passing free clothes to her
neighbors who are needy and this would
not be happening if we didn’t listen to
the beneficiaries the third point I’m
trying to make is that we must listen to
the change maker within and so saying
earlier this is essential to unleash the
power of the community so within
kabamaru Institute a new system where
every new person volunteer coming in we
have in-depth conversation with them to
understand what changed to you today we
want to see in the world and how can we
work with them to achieve that change
not just that we used to talk to her is
this thing changemakers and tap on their
ideas to follow on the story about the
program I did mention that we have a
fringe program for kids right after the
program ended the changemakers came in
through a post-mortem and to us that
they want to do more how the origin idea
was that making sure that the kids from
needy families have enough can keep up
through tuition true true
let’s say after-school care true
kindergarten actually that was not good
enough because if you start life too far
away from the starting point from the
rest just trying to keep up is not good
enough
what my changemakers to me was this if
you want them to truly fight the way
pass the poverty cycle pass the glass
ceiling
we must inspire them to passion and
therefore it is important to have a
talent discovery and telling a passion
program so that they can we can assemble
a group of people talented in different
views organize the kids find the talent
in the kids so that death Helen and that
passion will propel them to fight
through incredible arts in life and so
today we are working on a program to do
exactly just that cumulating in a kid’s
camp and the kids performance with the
objective of not just letting the
students the kids exhibit the talent but
more importantly to allow the parents to
see the passion and to be encouraged by
that this is a mock-up website of a new
effort that we’re doing it is called hop
collective by lunch we have by now 15
grown-up initiatives focusing on social
work in Cuban borough we feel that not
just by listening we have to empower our
changemakers so we created this platform
for residents to come in to think about
all the causes that can volunteer also
for fellow changemakers to come in to
understand what resources are available
to change make and we are also making
sure that even for people who don’t see
a cost that currently associate that
with they have the toolkits to come in
and empower them after the toolkits to
change the community so some of this
ideas that come out ah
for example they want to form a group
called tech for good to use technology
to help community Saudi programs they
are coming up is also an incubation
service
for other change making efforts from the
ground up and we are just getting
started so I’d like to conclude this
story about listening by a sharing of it
an interesting and adult that I but from
another TED talk there’s a TED talk by
Italian change maker he was into
development they ate in Africa and he
was part of this group where they would
transfer the best know-how from Italy to
Zambia
so the Italians were extremely
passionate about a practical cost
growing excellent beautiful big Tomatoes
so do they brought this a wonderful idea
over to the Zambians and for some
reasons the Zambians didn’t bite on this
idea but never mind the changemakers
persisted and in the end they succeeded
in growing big fat beautiful tomatoes
until the hippos came in at all of them
of course the italians were really upset
with the hippos and they asked his
ambience why didn’t you tell us that in
zambia he posts eat tomatoes then the
Zambians responded but you didn’t ask
you didn’t ask
it’s the same as saying you’re not
listening so all around the world change
makers are beginning to understand and
tap on the power of listening so I hope
that when we go back after the talk
today whether or not we are trying to
affect change in the community on the
business or in in the personal space
when we want to do so let’s not charge
in with a preconceived notion but focus
on listening because it matters and your
shape the way in which we want to change
the world and thank you so much for
listening
[Applause]
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