Ring me home
Design Thinking Journal
Group Reflection
Before the project, we were apprehensive about selecting the homeless community as our target community as none of us had any knowledge about it at the start. However, the homeless community has recently been the talk of the town as it was covered by news agencies like The Straits Times. Hence, despite our concerns of covering a new community, we decided to go through with it to broaden our horizons on various social issues in Singapore, as well as make use of this opportunity to shed light on the homeless.
In addition, we had contacts from Homeless hearts, an organization dedicated to helping homeless people in Singapore. Thus, it would be easier to find and contact the community organiser for inquiries on how to join their recce.
Before
During the project, we gained many insights through our interactions with the rough sleepers, with them showing us a glimpse about their daily struggles and needs. They were very happy to share about their lives and enjoyed our company. This interaction also challenged our stereotypes of them. Initially, we thought that all homeless people were jobless, and that all of them simply could not afford a home due to financial reasons. However, we found out that most of them had jobs, but they were working odd jobs or low skilled jobs such as security guards and cleaners, and found out that their homelessness could be due to several other reasons such as domestic violence, or their place of work is far from them. Additionally, we thought that homeless community are not bonded but after taking our time to build a relationship with them, we found out that rough sleepers care for each other a lot. This made us ponder on how we can do the same for the Singapore community as well.
As a team, we had also gotten to know more about each other’s work style, and have gotten much closer over the course of the project.
During
We are glad to have learnt more about the homeless community, and are proud that we managed to come up with a solution regarding their needs. From interviewing the homeless to crafting a service that caters to their needs, we have learnt countless things that challenged the prejudices that we once held towards them. Despite our apprehension at the start, we managed to go through the different design thinking phases. We take pride in what we have done and look forward to working together to address more social issues in the future. As a group, we hope to continue volunteering with Homeless Hearts and do our part to raise awareness on this community.