HOPE is often what keeps us going.
In troubled times — and a pandemic qualifies as such — the challenges posed by restrictions and impositions make it difficult to lead a normal life.
The world has been brought to its knees, and while there, it’s been hoping for a cure and an end to this global crisis.
In pre-pandemic times, hope was often directed at some sort of goal that people were working towards or wishing for. Be it for themselves, their family members, business, community or the world, hoping for something good as the intended outcome helped to ease troubled minds.
After two years of dealing with the COVID-19 there would have been a lot of hope thrown to the universe.
Has it been in vain, or does hope serve a purpose?
Charles Snyder specialised in positive psychology and is credited with creating the Hope Theory, an overall perception that goals can be attained with belief and effort.
He outlined three parts of hope: having goal-oriented thoughts; developing strategies to achieve goals; and being motivated to use effort to achieve these goals.
In her recent book, The Book of Hope, naturalist Jane Goodall outlines her four reasons for hope: The amazing human intellect; the resilience of nature; the power of youth; and the indomitable human spirit.
“I am sure hope makes a significant difference in so many aspects of our life. It impacts our behaviour and what we are able to achieve,” she explains.
The first WED WEB CHAT of the year is about hope.
Given the past couple of years, it’s something that has kept us going, and even with each twist and turn the virus takes to evade control and bouncing back, that human spirit still pushes ahead to find a way to carry on.
On the WED WEB CHAT — Hang On To Hope panel are Andie Ang, President of the Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore), Normala Manap, Director of Age Matters and Benny Bong, the Founder of The Family Therapist.
Andie Ang pursued her M.Sc. at the National University of Singapore studying the critically endangered Raffles’ banded langurs, before completing her Ph.D. at the University of Colorado Boulder working on the conservation of primates in Vietnam. She is currently a research scientist at Mandai Nature and the President of the Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore).
The Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore) was founded in 2007 to continue Dr. Jane’s work with humans, animals and the environment.
Normala Manap has been involved in social development for more than three decades and has gained in-depth experience, particularly of the health and age care industries at all levels.
She has worked across countries and cultures and at different levels of programme and policy development — building innovative start-ups, managing operations to developing frameworks for national development.
As an age care pioneer in Singapore she has built new care models, developed frameworks for care integration, set service standards and rolled out competency road maps for the sector.
Benny Bong is a family and marital therapist with over 35 years of experience as a counsellor, lecturer, trainer and a public speaker. He works with troubled individuals, couples in conflict and families at odds with each other.
In 2008 he authored Couples in Crisis and was one of co-researchers of the International Violence Against Women’s Survey (2010 Singapore Report). Benny is the current President of the Society Against Family Violence a non-profit organisation he co-founded 30 years ago.
How does hope factor in the work they do? How can we remain positive during challenging times?
Join the WED WEB CHAT — Hanging On To Hope on Wednesday 5 January 2022, from 12:45 — 1:30pm.
To register for the free session, click on THIS LINK.
