JOURNAL ENTRIES
Through our first field trip, we have gained more insights both about the organisation and the programs they offer. Currently, there are about 20 dedicated staffs who are running the organisation. They are allocated into 3 different committees, namely the Clinical/Casework, Programs and Equine. All departments work together in running 3 Equine-Assisted Learning programmes which caters for the vulnerable youths, i.e. Equal therapy (ET), Equal Scholars-Lite (ESL) and Equal Scholars (ES). ET & ESL are mainly contract-based which liaise with schools, whereas ES focuses more on helping individuals integrate back into society by going back into employment or education.
Before meeting up with Jolene, an Assistant Program Director at EQUAL, we walked around the centre and observed some of the activities and trainings that are conducted for the beneficiaries. After Jolene has finished facilitating one of the sessions with the students, she brought us around the EQUAL-ARK’s center along with 2 other staffs. During the tour, they shared with us their personal experiences working in EQUAL and also some interesting facts about their horses.
We then had a discussion with Jolene.They shared with us more about background of the organisation, clarified some of our doubts regarding the programmes offered and also how the organisation works. Moreover, they have also explained the management process of the programmes that they run daily. While sharing the organisation’s daily operations, Jolene has pointed out a key issue that the organisation often faces, that is the planning of the weekly timetable and management of their resources like manpower and horses. We found out that their timetable was done manually by pen and paper such that the process can be tedious and inefficient. The timetable was in a manner such that any changes to the timetable will affect other parts of the timetable. Hence the planning process may cause them to be exhausted and at times, frustrated. After learning about the management of employees and horses of the organisation, we agreed to their suggestion of attending one of their weekly resource meeting to help us understand better their needs and their planning process.
As we left EQUAL-ARK, we thought of a few possible solutions. Among them are to come out with excel sheets or trying out in-market applications which can help to organize their management process in a more structured and efficient way. Moreover, since we also aim to work directly with the youth eventually, we also discussed the possibility of organising storytelling sessions for some of the youths in the future. And this concludes our first field trip to EQUAL-ARK.
29th July
The very first-trip to EQUAL-ARK
2nd September
Attending EQUAL-ARK's resource meeting
We woke up early in the morning and prepared for our 2nd trip to EQUAL-ARK. This time, we will be attending their weekly resource meeting. Upon reaching there, we were attended to by Jolene who ushered us into their meeting room.
During the meeting, we were given the opportunity to see the organisation’s management process as well as the compilation of all the staffs’ schedules. Hence, we came to a better understanding of some of EQUAL-ARK’s most compelling issues. Since the weekly timetable is done manually on paper, it tends to be inefficient and tedious as changes needs to be done very frequently. We also observed that liaising between program leads can be a bit of challenge, as they are required to compile the schedules of all the team members in order to avoid any clashes in the schedule.
Overall, the trip has granted us a better understanding of the planning process and it has also allowed us to experience some of the challenges that they face when making the timetable.
After the resource meeting, we liaised with Jolene and Eugene on our next meeting.