Creating tomorrow’s Enabling Village

Overwhelming interest to co-create solutions for an inclusive Singapore

Since its official opening by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in December 2015, Enabling Village has not only made significant impact on the lives of persons with disabilities across life-stages but effected key national-level changes in domains such as early childhood education, sports and wellness, and inclusive training and employment. To do more and better for persons with disabilities, a 4-storey building extension will be added to Enabling Village to focus on honing and harnessing the creative talents of persons with disabilities, building their independent living skills and improving their caregivers’ wellbeing.

Honing and Harnessing Creative Talent

The extension will include the set-up of an art gallery to showcase the artworks of persons with disabilities and art studios for artists-in-residence programmes. As we continue our collaboration with community organisations such as Temenggong Artists-in-Residence, we want to broaden our partnership model with art institutions such as Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and LASALLE College of the Arts, to maximise the potential of persons with disabilities and support them in their artistic pursuits.

We will also leverage on i’mable Collective to translate the artistic talents or craftsmanship of persons with disabilities into commercially viable, high quality gift products. These products will be available for sale at the gallery’s retail store in Enabling Village. Some of the i’mable Collective gift products have gained national recognition at the National Day Parade 2020 with the endorsement by the President of Singapore, and international presence while being featured at prestigious Milan Design Week 2022.

We are thankful to have the support of Dalio Philanthropies for i’mable Collective and look forward to more support from corporates and the community.

Independent Living Skills

A perennial and deep concern of caregivers is what would happen to their loved ones with disabilities, when they pass on. While there is institutional care for those with very high support needs, many persons with disabilities are able to live independently within the community with the right support and accommodations. Combining training programmes with studios outfitted with smart home technologies, we will strengthen their independent living skills. This initiative will involve partnerships with social service agencies, technology companies, corporates and volunteers to run workshops (e.g. independent travelling, grocery shopping, cooking, etc) to hone the independent living skills of persons with disabilities.

Well-being of Caregivers

Many caregivers tend to neglect their own well-being in caring for their children with special needs or find it challenging to have self-care activities. There will be activities in the extension to focus on both the well-being of caregivers and persons with disabilities. Some activities would include children’s play, music making, and mindfulness art programmes. Parallel programmes for children with disabilities will allow caregivers to take some time off for their own self-care or learning pursuits while their loved ones with disabilities are meaningfully engaged.