Kumarr, on Mapping Strengths

The research I do in Beyond Social Services is not the kind you might think about when the word is said. We have done qualitative and quantitative research reports, but we also have been trying methods that involve the community in the research itself.

A staple tool that Beyond uses is the community mapping tool, where we identify common trends and patterns in the community such as relationships, assets or strengths, and pain points. Issues that arise range from the cleanliness of the neighbourhood playground to food insecurity or chronic health challenges. When many residents cite a similar pain point, we identify that as a grievance. Very often, grievances also bring to light strengths and assets nested in the community.

I’ll share an example. Although most of the country treated the relaxation of restrictions a few months ago as ‘return to normal’, ‘business as usual’, the story could not have been more different for our members. As families with children, rental flat households can be very cramped and dense. As a result, when one person in the household gets covid-19, it is only a matter of time before the whole household gets infected. Just like that, members who rely on cash-pay jobs to survive lose their rice bowls for a week or two.

In Lengkok Bahru, a group of mothers organised themselves to keep a look out for such households. Where they could, one mother would cook meals for sick families and another mother would help deliver it. This is an indication of the community’s strength and solidarity amidst significant hardship. Of course, this is not a sustainable solution. What if this group of mothers falls sick? What if the rising cost of living makes it more difficult for them to cook meals for themselves, let alone others? But mapping this as a strength is a good starting point to bring the community together to talk about food security, health, and employment.

When you look at an issue as an individual it can feel impossible to address it but when you look at it at the community level, and identify different strengths within, it can feel a lot more empowering and possible to address the pain that you have. Mapping strengths and assets along with grievances acknowledges that members are a part of the solution themselves.

Our approach helps residents to decide for themselves what they want to do and to make the research tools as accessible as possible for as many people as possible. We try to activate the residents themselves in the research process. We bring some of the active residents to go on walks around in their neighbourhoods and ask them about where the children play, where the elderly hang out, where the adults go to vent their frustrations, or where the aunties go to gossip. This may all sound random, but it helps to put together a narrative of the community. Maybe something terrible happened in a place that residents cannot forget. Or there’s a place of shared joy like a playground where many of them played as children and where they got to know their fellow neighbours, so there’s a shared narrative there.

The work of the research department exists primarily to complement the community work that my colleagues do. Asset mapping deepens the relationship between residents. There’s a shared relationship and understanding about the structural issues that they are trying to confront such as poverty, health inequality or food insecurity.

With this type of community centered research, it allows me to get away from my laptop and go down to the community itself and meet a lot of residents, so I’ve built a lot of friendships. I would count some of them as close friends, and I think that helps the work as well when there’s that level of trust.

– Kumar, Researcher and Community Worker

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