Amanda Chen-Lee: Art Therapy Pioneer Building Community Change

Amanda Chen-Lee did not set out to become an art therapist. She arrived at the work sideways, through a conversation that changed everything. Working in advertising and branding, she found herself drawn to the stories emerging from Children's Wishing Well, a children's charity where she spent time. The children and families she encountered there stayed with her—their struggles, their silences, the things they could not quite say. That pull toward something more meaningful than the work she was doing grew stronger until she acted on it. She asked one of the charity's counsellors for guidance, and that single conversation introduced her to art therapy, a field that suddenly made sense of everything she had been circling: her background in art, her curiosity about psychology, her desire to serve.

She pursued a master's degree in art therapy and founded Art for Good, an organization built on a conviction that most people misunderstand. Art therapy, she explains, is not about talent or the production of beautiful objects. It is about creating a room—a literal and emotional space—where people can explore thoughts and feelings that words alone cannot reach. Creativity, she insists, is not a luxury reserved for the gifted. It is fundamental to being human, as necessary as breath. This distinction matters because it changes who feels welcome in the work. It opens the door to people who have never thought of themselves as creative, who carry shame about their inability to draw or paint, who need permission to try.

What guides her now is a principle she has learned through years of this work: lasting change does not come from one person's effort, no matter how dedicated. It emerges from community—from families that feel supported, from organizations willing to listen, from people choosing inclusion over exclusion, from shared purpose. She has built her practice and her organizations around this understanding. The Black Sampan and Orang Laut SG, both of which she founded, reflect this commitment to collective healing rather than individual intervention.

When the work becomes difficult—and it does—she returns to practices that keep her grounded: meditation, yoga, moments of reflection. She is deliberate about this. She knows that she cannot pour from an empty cup, that her own well-being is not separate from her capacity to show up for others. Every few weeks, she steps back from the daily demands to ask whether her work still aligns with her purpose, what she has learned, where her energy should go next. This habit of periodic reflection has become essential to her leadership.

Early in her career, she believed she needed complete clarity before moving forward, that every answer had to be in place before taking the next step. Experience has taught her otherwise. Clarity, she has discovered, often emerges through the journey itself. This realization freed her from a kind of paralysis. It also shifted how she leads. She has learned that leadership is not about doing everything herself, about controlling every detail because she cares deeply about the work. True leadership means trusting and empowering others, letting go of the need to be involved in everything. This remains an area she continues to work on—the discipline of stepping back, of believing in the people around her enough to release control.

When she talks about resilience, she does not speak of never failing. She speaks of the courage to try again with greater wisdom, of treating setbacks as invitations to rethink and adapt. Meaningful change takes time. It requires patience with the process and faith that if something truly matters, another way forward exists. This philosophy—grounded in community, built on trust, patient with the long arc of change—is what she carries into her work each day, and what she offers to others who are searching for their own purpose.