Gena, a passionate community builder and ‘professional friend’ brings people together in the most unexpected way — through anonymous letters. Gena’s app allows people to write heartfelt, honest messages to complete strangers, creating space for vulnerability, empathy, and connection in a digital world that often feels disconnected.
00:00I think that Singaporeans are generally like, they're actually very warm and sticky and loyal.
00:04They are like authors, right? In the sense that they're always in the pack.
00:06Because they trust each other and they're generally frightened of each other.
00:09But once you're in their inner circle, they really do take care of you.
00:19Hi, I'm Gina. I'm a community builder at GIF Asia.
00:23Actually, what I do is I run community events.
00:26But what I also do is I make a lot of friends.
00:28So I'm a professional friend.
00:30I go out there, I meet communities, I establish contact with them.
00:36I think the idea here is how can we activate communities that are already spending time on each other and relationships?
00:41How can we infuse that with an even stronger character of social good?
00:53We're going to Cafe Agora.
00:55We're going to put the poster up in the cafe. The owner's Michael.
00:58So we're going to ask him and see if we can put it up.
01:00Yeah.
01:01I came up with this letter writing app to match strangers with each other using letters.
01:10What you do is you scan the QR code on the poster.
01:13And then you're led to a form.
01:15And in the form, you basically tell us a little bit more about yourself.
01:18And then you just write a little letter to someone.
01:20It goes into my database.
01:21And then on Sunday, I click a button and then the letters are sent.
01:26We've matched 250 letters with 250 strangers.
01:29And some of you guys are here today.
01:31Basically, I realized that there are just not many initiatives to connect strangers with each other.
01:35And I think basically I was from like a girl's school.
01:38And then we used to like write letters to each other like all the time.
01:40And then I just thought, you know, why don't we just do this again?
01:44But like with actual more strangers now that I'm an adult and I can actually talk to people normally, right?
01:54Ultimately, I really wanted to bring back a kind of like spontaneous earnestness to our kind of like public life,
01:59which I think is sadly very absent.
02:01After this activity, I think what we will be doing is that we will be doing a short sharing of the letters that they've selected,
02:10and also the letters they've written, and also letters they've written before.
02:13So I hope that we'll be able to create a sort of raw space that will allow people to get to know each other.
02:22If your house is like burning and you can say one thing, what would it be?
02:25It would be this person.
02:27Aww.
02:28You can't get another passport. You cannot get another letter that someone has written you.
02:33That's right.
02:34I think of you as a beautiful fish in sparkling blue water, swimming freely and truly.
02:40When I was 16, I ripped the heart out of a chicken for the first time.
02:44Oh, sorry, context, context.
02:46I placed them in a variety of places. I placed them in cafes, restaurant, bars.
03:01I would be like, hey, can you put it on the wall of your restaurant? They'd be like, okay, see how?
03:04Okay, put it on the table. Okay, see how? How about the toilet? Like, okay, put it on the toilet.
03:07You know, like when you're taking a dump and then you see a poster about writing a letter to a stranger.
03:12You'll also be more inclined to do it because there's nothing you can do anyway.
03:15Letter writing is a solitary act. Alone together, I think that's like the idea.
03:25So when they write these letters, they were writing it with the desire to be received.
03:30So on the Sundays when I do end up matching, everyone is alone together in a sense that two people receive the letters and now they are connected in a way.
03:38Connection is my religion. Ever since I was a young girl, I've always felt alone.
03:49My favourite movie as a kid was Phantom of the Opera. And I really, really related to the Phantom.
03:55Like, I really related to the idea of this person that was just cast away from society.
03:59But because of this deep loneliness, I felt that I didn't really want others to be alone.
04:03I've always wanted to be very close to others.
04:09Growing up, I was always kind of like viewed strangely for that.
04:14But growing older, I realised that connection is actually a human need, even if mine is probably more intense than others.
04:19So I knew the desire for connection is like an insatiable hunger.
04:22I feel like nowadays in society, a lot of people like they, they kind of have a very deep distrust of others.
04:34And I think honestly, the new cycle does, does perpetuate this idea that people are evil because of course it's like spectacle and evil.
04:39And I think the letter writing thing, I would say is more like reminding people that there are benefits, that there are things to gain from making contact with others.
04:48Wow, actually it's really funny. I feel like my entire life is about community.
04:54I run a ground-out initiative called Places.
04:56Places redistributes free spaces to communities for their events.
05:00Places was a dream that I think my best friend and I had when we were much younger.
05:05We always imagined that maybe one day, there will be a network of places where misfits will be able to drop into and meet other misfits.
05:12I think in large cities, what a lot of young people struggle with is loneliness and friendship connection.
05:20Events like this, which offer us a third space, allow for strangers to come together to form connections, become friends, maybe learn something from each other.
05:30And I think this adds to the vibrancy and to the culture of the city.
05:34I would love to attend something like this again in the future.
05:36We organised this event so that I can get to know them as people.
05:44I just really want to see, you know, like who these people are.
05:47On the database, they're just data, right? They're just names, they're just texts.
05:50I could generate these texts, but there was a real person behind it.
05:53I would say that most of my projects are from a belief.
06:01I think that people are genuinely extremely interesting.
06:04And I really believe that everyone has something that they can give to society.
06:08I think that everyone is a beautiful, full individual.
06:12I genuinely think that every time I think of people, even when I ran the event today, I felt that everyone had this entire life behind them.
06:24And then for this moment, they had come together for me to look at them and I had witnessed them.
06:42The night leaves.
06:44Peace out, are you all near them?
06:46Alright, peace out, come on up, come on.
06:51Bye.
06:53From the state of the city, I heard you and I found you.
06:59We're eram calm days ages, not the leaders.
07:01By the way.
07:03I think tief a relationship about what we want.
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