What brought me to Singapore?

After graduating from the University of Georgia with an MA in Communication Studies, I decided to move to Singapore to work as a research assistant for the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE), a program led by Dr. Mohan Dutta and housed at the National University of Singapore.

 I feel that should first direct you to Dr. Mohan Dutta's blog as he can much more eloquently communicate his motivation for CARE. His vision is driven by passion for social change and is fueled by the power of listening to the stories told by disenfranchised populations:  http://culture-centered.blogspot.com/
or visit our new CARE blog: http://www.care-cca.com/

So here is more of the skinny on my job with the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE):

    The Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) is a project-driven center housed in the Department of Communication and New Media at the National University of Singapore that utilizes ethnographic and participatory action research methods in carrying out culturally-centered social change interventions in marginalized populations.

   The Center is global in scope with initial project emphases in South Asia and Southeast Asia. The goals of the Center are to (a) create a strategic research core for the social scientific study of health communication and social change issues in Asia (e.g. China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka), (b) develop health communication interventions and policies that are culturally-centered and developed through the acknowledgement of the participatory capacity of local communities in creating culturally meaningful and locally responsive health solutions, (c) disseminate core principles and lessons learned from the culture-centered projects within Asia and across other sectors of the globe, and (d) build health communication research capacity in Asia by creating a training hub for the next generation of health communication theorists, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers across Asia.

   I will be participating in field-based culture-centered projects, with a focus on disenfranchised populations, running interventions, as well as conducting evaluations through the use of participatory quantitative and qualitative methodologies. 

   I am excited to learn about and love a new culture through listening to their unique and powerful stories.

❝If you talk to a [person] in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.❞
‒Nelson Mandela