Diversity by Default
A conversational card game that intersects various forms of diversity while making dialogue more accessible
Hello, we are Being Bridges.
We help multicultural communities grow resilience,
offering supportive tools and meaningful programmes
that nurture social cohesion.
We specialise in the space of diversity and harmony,
focussing on the sensitive yet significant work
of interfaith, interracial, and intercultural dialogue.
We consult on social projects for ESG sustainability
goals of corporate organisations, religious communities,
educational institutions, and government agencies.
Our Philosophy
This is complex, sensitive, and very hard work. How do we approach or even touch these issues of significance in our multicultural society?
Doing diversity and dialogue differently.
Diversity is not a fault - it's our default. It's not our end point, but our starting point. So then dialogue isn't the solution - it's the organic consequence of our natural human foundation.
Building bridges for being bridges.
We make tools that are not ends in themselves, as they in turn make us. The external bridges we build serve a purpose - so that internally we may be bridges; and serve our purpose.
Connecting communities through the catalyst of their own captivating conversations.
We curate conversations that are contextualised to the lived realities of each community that works with us. Every community has a distinct context, so our engagements will never be the same for any. Therefore, our conversations are always collaborative. Crafted by communities themselves, this approach has the best potential for connecting with participants and catalysing them.
Our Partners
In the work of diversity, the community is the essential partner. We work with clients and collaborators, benefactors and beneficiaries, organisations and individuals, who range across the public sector, private sector, and civic society. Social harmony is too important, so we need all the help we can get. More details soon.
Our Participants
We interact with many people in our work - participants, volunteers, and clients. Who are they and how have they experienced us?
I think it has the potential to break boundaries of what is deemed sensitive. Many shy away from issues that really matter/should matter to us because they're worried of bringing up 'sensitive', difficult topics. This should never be the case.”
~ Christine May Yong, participant at Diversity by Default (DBD) gameplay session
This volunteering activity got me interested in the different houses of worship - some I may not even know before! I think it's helped me want to spread the awareness [of religious diversity].”
~ Mathilda Choo, Youth Network volunteer for Being Guests at Racial Harmony Day festival
We were looking for a speaker to share about How To Enact Change, and Basil [from Being Bridges] really went above and beyond. Pulling in a range of examples from his experience in diversity dialogues and beyond, his sharing was clear, relevant, and convincing.
He was warm and friendly towards our students, creating a conducive environment for them to buzz and ask questions as well. The response for the event was great, and we’re definitely looking forward to working with Basil again!”
~ Rachel, NUS High School Senior Council President, Student Leadership Summit
Our Profile
There are different ways to build community. What is Being Bridges, who are we as a company, and how do we do what we do without losing our way?
SOCIAL CONSULTANCY & INNOVATION LAB
We are an award-winning consultancy and social innovation lab. We operate as a social enterprise partnering with government agencies, corporate entities, educational institutions, and non-profit organisations (inclusive of both secular and faith-based communities) intrigued by the dialogue of diversity and harmony.
We explore the gaps, the struggles, and the bottlenecks in the work of diversity and come up with tools that help in crafting the contextualised conversations so crucial to a multicultural society. We know the dialogue is already happening. Our role is to support and innovate.
SUPPORT FOR THE DIALOGUE
Our field of work caters to the landscape of diversity, dialogue, and discrimination.
Our focus of work is to engage, facilitate, and innovate.
Our specialty is to develop tools for conversations around culture, religion, and ethnicity.
PARTICULAR LENS & ANGLE
Our lens is how we see things and our angle is the route we choose to move along given the same realities. Every organisation has its own lenses and angles, even in comparison with others from within the same industry. The work of reinforcing community and social cohesion within the realities of pluralism can take many views and routes.
If our ways seem different and narrowly focused, that's because they are. They leverage on who we are and what we are good at. Thus, our angles as a community-centred organisation move us along these axes:
We focus not as much on advocacy
as on dialogue facilitation.
We focus not as much on activism
as on community activation.
We focus not as much on confrontation
as on social innovation.
Those other routes are not wrong, and in fact, we some times have to use them. Given the right situations and skills, they are helpful. But they are not our calling. Our particular lenses and angles are what we have trained for, what we specialise in, and what we leverage on to help your communities on the ground. Speak with us about an engagement.
Our Projects
We consult on all sorts of diversity-related projects, running both long-term large-scale projects as well as short-term ad hoc engagements for clients and community partners. We also offer customised versions of our main projects for short-term programmes configured to your community needs. Schedule a call with us for specific details.
We create products
that tweak the dialogue around diversity for specific needs, whether it’s widening the dialogue, simplifying it, or deepening it.
We customize processes
that cater to the local contexts of particular communities, building up their capacity for dynamic versatility and resilience, whether it’s interfaith, interracial, or intercultural diversity.
We conduct programmes
that facilitate conversations around diversity, supporting the dialogue with tools and training that enable communities and individuals to do the same, whether they're from the government, corporate, educational, or religious landscapes.
Our People
We are a growing consulting firm helmed by a Singaporean team of multicultural heritage. Part of the diversity landscape for over a decade, we are bolstered by a large network of specialist collaborators, freelancers, part-timers, and volunteers.
As a consultancy whose work is collaborative by choice, Being Bridges is a social enterprise birthed from a real and ever-present need for developing cohesion out of diversity. Our specialties and those of our network span various backgrounds of research and practice that are essential to multicultural community-building.
Together we have facilitated more than a hundred sessions of dialogue, trained dozens of communities from various sectors of society, and consulted on a range of projects with a lens towards diversity.
As our newly merged work and expertise begins to grow, we hope to explore and cater more of such offerings around issues of diversity to the specific needs of local communities, work places, and members of the public.
