Building Environment Sustainability with Singapore’s Silver Population
TOUCH Community Services is a non-profit charity organisation with 20 years of operations and is an active member of the National Council of Social Service in Singapore. Their mission is to create a progressive community that values and empowers people of all ages. The acronym G.I.V.E represents the four causes that TOUCH advocates:
o Grow potential of Children, Youth and Families
o Impact lives of persons with Special Needs
o Value well-being of persons with Healthcare Needs
o Enrich the golden years of our Elderly
Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own. With the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations Development Programme calls for practices that balance social, economic and environmental sustainability.
As one of the leading financial hubs in the world, Singapore prioritises tackling climate change, and encouraging sustainable development while continuing to foster its economic growth. Building sustainability is every citizen’s responsibility; all people play an important role in making the country a better and greener place for us, and for our future generations. Although Singapore’s Smart Nation initiatives allow its citizens to live fulfilling lives, enabled by technology, the older generation still encounter barriers to be digitally savvy. This prevents them from acquiring information on climate change, sustainable development, and what they can do to contribute to Singapore’s greener environment. With those who know their ways around technological devices, information-overload can also confuse them, further de-motivating them from acquiring helpful information. Thus, bringing sustainability to Singapore's silver population requires distinguished approaches compared to that of youths and adults.
This semester, TOUCH teamed up with SMU-X COR2210 ‘Technological Innovations Enhancing Urban Sustainability’ by Professor Winston Chow to challenge SMU students in bringing the concept of environment sustainability to the elders of Singapore. The goal is to help educate the elderly on sustainability, sustainable development and sustainable practices.
Throughout the whole 12 weeks, students had the opportunity to consult with TOUCH through interviews, asking questions to validate their understanding of the context of the project, their value proposition and move on to developing their final solutions. As part of their final deliverables, all 4 teams were asked to deliver a 45-minute workshop catered to their target audience to educate them on sustainability. Three of the teams deployed the use of smartphones and online game platforms to further engage their target audience attention.
- Team 1 focused on introducing the 3Rs: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle in their proposal. Their objective is to simplify Urban Sustainability for the seniors. The activities proposed an aim to emphasise the importance of the 3Rs while invoking their interest by drawing parallels with past eco-friendly practices that they are familiar with.
- Team 2 drafted up the ‘SustainAbility’ segment in which they deployed a video skit to introduce sustainable practices that could be done in daily lives, and 2 team games to further reinforce their materials.
- Team 3 proposed the link between healthy eating and sustainability, reiterating that small changes in their lifestyle can have a huge impact on sustainability efforts. Healthy eating involves picking the healthier choice labels on food products, consuming both healthy home-cooked and hawker food.
- Team 4 provided an informative workshop, consisting of short information sessions to enable seniors to learn the ‘Whats, Whys and Hows’ of sustainability.
“Working with TOUCH as a partner in my SMU-X course was very enjoyable for all of us! They were candid and gave excellent insights to my students on real-world problems that are often not considered in purely academic examinations of the “digital divide” in urban sustainability. It really helps in reinforcing important learning outcomes of how to overcome the Smart City challenges of communicating to the Silver Generation to students, which will stay with students even after completing this course.”
-- Associate Professor Winston Chow, faculty instructor for COR2210 ‘Technological Innovations Enhancing Urban Sustainability'