牺牲小我， 完成大我

the day ended well. dinner with BR at munchie monkeys. kinda miss post-foc days when we can sit down for the longest times and talk about anything. everybody's just too busy now i guess. i hardly even see some of them now.

"and somehow i keep forgetting to thank amelia (i know u'll read this) cos without you i think BR wouldnt be that united too. thanks for all ur efforts every time okay! ((:"

from vivien's post! i think without your enthusiasm, i would be too paiseh to be enthu too! really glad we have BR. of cos with a great aogl (i wouldn't say the same for the ogl!=P) and i know you'll read this too!=D

slept super early (11pm) last night and woke up at 9am this morning. i really can't remember the last time i slept for so long already. but it felt really good. was just too tired last night lar.

the guys are ord-ing soon! it's quite amusing to hear them being so on about it. i think it's been a long time since something can make them so happy. HAHA!=)

nadjad sent us this link in the buckle-buckley yahoogroup (which has been dormant for about 2 years now) from TODAY online. quite an inspiring story i must say.

The Director Who Became Poor

Have you ever laid in bed distressed by this nagging question: “God, why am I rich?”

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Thought not. Well, Dylan Wilk has. So disturbed was he that he gave up his high-flying lifestyle to build houses for the poor in the Philippines.

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He started by selling his car. “I was depressed after doing it,” says Wilk, 33. It was a poignant move because Wilk, born to a poor family, had always wanted to be rich. At 20, he took a loan of about £2,500 ($5,955) from a foundation set up by Prince Charles and started Gameplay, a business selling computer games. In five years, it became Europe’s largest direct-selling computer games business.

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For the record, Wilk was, according to The Guardian, the ninth richest man in the United Kingdom under the age of 30, eight years ago. At 25, he listed his computer games business on the London Stock Exchange, and became the youngest director of a public-listed company then.

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With the cash from the sale of his car — one of several BMWs he owned alongside a Ferrari and a Porsche — he flew to the Philippines, and visited Gawad Kalinga (GK) sites there.

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Translated as “to give care”, GK positions itself as an alternative solution to poverty. Its vision for the Philippines is a slum-free, squatter-free nation through providing land for the landless, homes for the homeless, and food for the hungry.

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The price of his car would have built 80 homes, but when he offered the money to GK’s founder Tony Meloto, it was suggested he return to the Philippines instead.

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Wilk is in Singapore to speak to students at Halogen Foundation Singapore’s annual National Young Leaders’ Day and National Primary Young Leaders’Day. The foundation is a non-profit organisation.

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These days, his home is Manila, where he is GK’s International Partnerships Coordinator. “I drive an eight-year-old car and live in a small house,” he said.

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The transition was not all-smooth. The “depression” of losing his car was just the start of birth pangs. “The biggest obstacle ... was myself,” he said. “I had this romantic notion of what it was to help people. It was a great change in lifestyle and it was definitely painful to sacrifice.”

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The second obstacle was his family. Wilk had sold his company and spent six months looking at different charities to work with, from South-east Asia to South America. “My family was very concerned andthought I was going crazy,” he recalled.

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When he decided on GK, “my mum thought I was brainwashed by a cult. So she decided to follow me to the Philippines to spy on me,” he said. After his mum was assured, “my sister thought that my mum was being brainwashed, too!”

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Crime syndicates are another problem he has to deal with. “They don’t want poverty to change because they benefit from it. For example, when we first arrived at a mangrove swamp to help revamp it, it was barricaded because there was someone illegally leasing out land to the poor,” he said.

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“We spent two years enlisting the help of many important people to help remove the guy.”

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Thus, he has become “more patient, more caring, and more focused on empowering others. Before, “the bottomline was everything”.

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“I’ve found the joy in building relationships with people,” he said. He returned to the Philippines after the first time, intending to stay for six weeks. That was five years ago. He subsequently fell in love with the eldest daughter of GK’s founder and now is the father of two daughters, aged one and three.

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“I am still amazed at my journey, and where we are going,” he said. “When I first joined GK, we were helping 80 villages. Now we’ve helped 1,700 villages and a quarter of a million people.” GK is now in Cambodia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. It will be in East Timor soon.

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And it all started for Wilk after one night in a Beverly Hills hotel.

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“I was thinking about how much I had, and how it was never going to be enough,” he said. “I used to change cars every six months ... While others ask God why they are poor, I started asking God why I was rich and what he wanted from me. I looked at all the rich people around me, and realised that most had family or alcohol problems, and few were satisfied.

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“I didn’t want to be like that in 20 years ... ”