Fight Poverty - Educate the Children

An educated population and workforce is a prerequisite for building a well functioning economy offering opportunities to all. Yet today, over 100 million children are still out of school due to poverty, including 59 million girls; one third of children out of school are children with disabilities.

I was in Siem Reap, Cambodia recently for a holiday. One afternoon, we decided to choose a fairly basic place to have lunch. So we ventured into this restaurant which serves both Western as well as Cambodian dishes. The prices are reasonable and for US$2, one can get a very decent hamburger and salad.

We tried Cambodian food instead and this person in the photo was our waiter. He was polite and cheerful and took our orders. He can just barely speak a spatter of English, enough to get by as a waiter. After serving us lunch, and since there were no other customers, he sat down a table just next to ours to study his English as seen in this photo. I took this photo of him, and I can imagine he must be thinking the day when he can speak good English and have a good education, the immense possibilities and a brighter future that will be his and loved ones.

One must understand that The Khmer Rouge government (1975-1979) systematically eradicated education in Cambodia, closing schools and universities, burning books, and killing librarians, teachers, and even people who wore glasses.

Following the defeat of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the new government had to try to rebuild an education system basically from scratch, and the current state of education in Cambodia is still affected by this. The percentage of children completing primary school was also low, at 48%, and for completing lower secondary school was lower still at 21%.

On another note, there are a number of non-government organizations (NGOs) that are helping out with the education of children, particularly street kids and orphans. The Green Gecko project and the Sangkheum Center for Children are two Siem Reap-based NGOs that focus on providing a free education for children to help them avoid a life of continuing poverty and homelessness. Find out where the Green Gecko journey began on the streets of Siem Reap as Kim Suan shares her story in the video below. Click here for more of what Green Gecko project does.



If you are determine to do something significant and more specifically contribute to the education of the children in these wretched economies and make an impact to the lives of the young Cambodians, you can volunteer or donate to Gecko. Check out this link or use the donate button below.

   
I came across another charity organisation Room to Read by accident. Their vision is a world in which all children can pursue a quality education, reach their full potential and contribute to their community and the world. Education is

To achieve this goal, we focus on two areas where we believe we can have the greatest impact: literacy and gender equality in education.

“Literacy unlocks the door to learning throughout life, 

is essential to development and health, 

and opens the way for democratic participation and active citizenship.”

-Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary-General

Education changes everything. It certainly did for eleven-year-old Inkham from Oudomxay, Laos. Inkham lives with her parents, two brothers and new baby sister. She has a full day of helping her mother with cooking, collecting water and chores before school even starts. Inkam loves studying Lao language and writing essays at school, and she dreams of graduating from secondary school to attend a university. Room to Read's Girls' Education program ensures that Inkham has the supplies, tools and mentoring she needs to complete her secondary education and succeed in her dreams.



Here is another video. Indeeed education is the key to fight against poverty.



Room to Read celebrated its 10 year anniversary with the opening of its 10,000th library in Nepal. Over the last decade, Room to Read has scaled exponentially to impact more than 4 million children in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Zambia.



I am heartened that there are NGOs out there trying to eradicate poverty through education, especially for the children. You and I can contribute in a small yet significant way to fight poverty by donating or volunteering.

Yours for a purpose driven life,
Cheong

Build Your Marriage - Start a Hobby Together

'We may not have it all together, but altogether we have it all' - Author unknown


This afternoon, my wife and I worked on the garden together. This is one of the hobbies we have shared together since we were married. We do this almost every week end, usually on a Saturday.

We normally spend about an hour and half tidying the garden, weeding, pruning, re-potting, adding fertilizer etc etc. It can be quite tiring and back breaking especially when we have to re-pot plants and dig up the ground to grow new plants.

And because we live in the topics, the humidity can be a challenge but then we have done it for so many years and at the end of it, we found it rather rewarding. We have made something beautiful together.

We find that sharing a hobby together is a sure way of deepening our relationship and spending time doing such recreational activities have helped us strengthen our bond. We have been married for 25 years! Sure we have conflicts and quarrels at times, but we are not overcome by them. We resolve the issues and move on.

Besides gardening, we also take walks together in the evenings; at least twice a week, although we hope to do more. We also travel together and we are planning for a 5 day trip to Bangkok in December 2012. In fact, we have booked our air tickets and hotel. This year, this would be the 4th time we are travelling together.

Such common pursuits not only help in increasing our love, but also building up a friendship that would add meaning to our marriage. It has helped is to be close together and increase the level of understanding between us.

But before you jump into the bandwagon of sharing a hobby with your partner, be sensitive to the needs of your spouse or partner as each of us are different and would have different interests and pursuits. First, it is wise to sit together and discuss each others likes and dislikes. One must understand and respect each others' opinion about certain things. Discuss the games and things you liked to do when you both were kids. This may help you in coming up with some ideas about your pursuits together. It you are having problems in finding some avocation, here are a few activities from which you can choose those that you and your partner would love to do together.

Second choose a hobby and get started. Don't delay, make plans to start as soon as possible. It's okay if later you found that the hobby does not fit both of you. Start again with another one. The key is to start sharng one together. Here are a bunch of ideas of hobbies that you can do together:

• Grow a garden
• Design and work on your landscaping
• Learn tennis, skating or golf
• Get season tickets to a sporting event or the opera
• Take art, dance, or cooking classes
• Go running together
• Volunteer charity work 
• Go on picture-taking walks
• Visit museums
• Read the same book and discuss
• Play XBox or another video game
• Cook new recipes
• Collect coins or stamps
• Write a book
• Travel
• Start a blog 

Have fun and a blessed marriage!!

Archive Listing

2012

November

28     Where to Rest One's Faith

October

29        Fight Poverty - Educate the Children
28        Build Your Marriage - Start a Hobby Together
26        In memory of Dr Richard Teo - Life, Wealth, Success & Happiness
26        The Transformative Power of Personal Projects : Ji Lee

About

I have been wonderfully blessed by the Lord Jesus Christ. As I make my journey on this earth, I aim to bless as many people as possible. Wherever I go, I plan to add value to the lives of others; it can be through a word of encouragement, a pat on the back, a smile, a good deed, a message of hope and a prayer of blessing.

Thank you for visiting my blog. I enjoy art, design, travel, outdoors, reading, exercise, photography, music and food. I also seek to live a purposeful live and learn the disciplines of living life to the fullness to maximize my potential.

This blog is a means where I share some of the interesting bits of disciplines which helped me in live a life of significance, timeless insights, my travels and anything which is amusing and magical ... We live in a beautiful world and I try to take time to enjoy every moment and savor the beauty of the creation around me.

May God bless you in your journey of life too.

Shalom,

Cheong Choi

In memory of Dr Richard Teo - Thoughts of Life, Wealth, Success & Happiness

What is the purpose of life?

This is a question which means different things to different people. Below is the transcript of the talk of Dr. Richard Teo, who is a 40-year-old Singapore millionaire and cosmetic surgeon with a stage-4 lung cancer but selflessly came to share with the D1 class his life experience on 19-Jan-2012. He shared his thoughts of Life, Wealth, Success & Happiness. May you find the true purpose of life.

Hi good morning to all of you. My voice is a bit hoarse, so please bear with me. I thought I'll just introduce myself. My name is Richard, I'm a medical doctor. And I thought I'll just share some thoughts of my life. It's my pleasure to be invited by prof. Hopefully, it can get you thinking about how... as you pursue this.. embarking on your training to become dental surgeons, to think about other things as well.

Since young, I am a typical product of today's society. Relatively successful product that society requires.. From young, I came from a below average family. I was told by the media... and people around me that happiness is about success. And that success is about being wealthy. With this mind-set, I've always be extremely competitive, since I was young.

Not only do I need to go to the top school, I need to have success in all fields. Uniform groups, track, everything. I needed to get trophies, needed to be successful, I needed to have colours award, national colours award, everything. So I was highly competitive since young. I went on to medical school, graduated as a doctor. Some of you may know that within the medical faculty, ophthalmology is one of the most highly sought after specialities. So I went after that as well. I was given a traineeship in ophthalmology, I was also given a research scholarship by NUS to develop lasers to treat the eye. 

So in the process, I was given 2 patents, one for the medical devices, and another for the lasers. And you know what, all this academic achievements did not bring me any wealth. So once I completed my bond with MOH, I decided that this is taking too long, the training in eye surgery is just taking too long. And there's lots of money to be made in the private sector. If you're aware, in the last few years, there is this rise in aesthetic medicine. Tons of money to be made there. So I decided, well, enough of staying in institution, it's time to leave. So I quit my training halfway and I went on to set up my aesthetic clinic... in town, together with a day surgery centre.

You know the irony is that people do not make heroes out average GP (general practitioner), family physicians. They don't. They make heroes out of people who are rich and famous. People who are not happy to pay $20 to see a GP, the same person have no qualms paying ten thousand dollars for a liposuction, 15 thousand dollars for a breast augmentation, and so on and so forth. So it's a no brainer isn't? Why do you want to be a gp? Become an aesthetic physician. So instead of healing the sick and ill, I decided that I'll become a glorified beautician. So, business was good, very good. It started off with waiting of one week, then became 3weeks, then one month, then 2 months, then 3 months. I was overwhelmed; there were just too many patients. Vanities are fantastic business. I employed one doctor, the second doctor, the 3rd doctor, the 4th doctor. And within the 1st year, we're already raking in millions. Just the 1st year. But never is enough because I was so obsessed with it. I started to expand into Indonesia to get all the rich Indonesian tai-tais who wouldn't blink an eye to have a procedure done. So life was really good.

So what do I do with the spare cash. How do I spend my weekends? Typically, I'll have car club gatherings. I take out my track car, with spare cash I got myself a track car. We have car club gatherings. We'll go up to Sepang in Malaysia. We'll go for car racing. And it was my life. With other spare cash, what do i do? I get myself a Ferrari. At that time, the 458 wasn't out, it's just a spider convertible, 430. This is a friend of mine, a schoolmate who is a forex trader, a banker. So he got a red one, he was wanting all along a red one, I was getting the silver one.

So what do I do after getting a car? It's time to buy a house, to build our own bungalows. So we go around looking for a land to build our own bungalows, we went around hunting. So how do i live my life? Well, we all think we have to mix around with the rich and famous. This is one of the Miss Universe. So we hang around with the beautiful, rich and famous. This by the way is an internet founder. So this is how we spend our lives, with dining and all the restaurants and Michelin Chefs you know. 

So I reach a point in life that I got everything for my life. I was at the pinnacle of my career and all. That's me one year ago in the gym and I thought I was like, having everything under control and reaching the pinnacle.

Well, I was wrong. I didn't have everything under control. About last year March, I started to develop backache in the middle of nowhere. I thought maybe it was all the heavy squats I was doing. So I went to SGH, saw my classmate to do an MRI, to make sure it's not a slipped disc or anything. And that evening, he called me up and said that we found bone marrow replacement in your spine. I said, sorry what does that mean? I mean I know what it means, but I couldn't accept that. I was like “Are you serious?” I was still running around going to the gym you know. But we had more scans the next day, PET scans - positrons emission scans, they found that actually I have stage 4 terminal lung cancer. I was like "Whoa where did that come from?” It has already spread to the brain, the spine, the liver and the adrenals. And you know one moment I was there, totally thinking that I have everything under control, thinking that I've reached the pinnacle of my life. But the next moment, I have just lost it. 

This is a CT scan of the lungs itself. If you look at it, every single dot there is a tumour. We call this miliaries tumour. And in fact, I have tens of thousands of them in the lungs. So, I was told that even with chemotherapy, that I'll have about 3-4months at most. Did my life come crushing on, of course it did, who wouldn't? I went into depression, of course, severe depression and I thought I had everything. 

See the irony is that all these things that I have, the success, the trophies, my cars, my house and all. I thought that brought me happiness. But i was feeling really down, having severe depression. Having all these thoughts of my possessions, they brought me no joy. The thought of... You know, I can hug my Ferrari to sleep, no... No, it is not going to happen. It brought not a single comfort during my last ten months. And I thought they were, but they were not true happiness. But it wasn't. What really brought me joy in the last ten months was interaction with people, my loved ones, friends, people who genuinely care about me, they laugh and cry with me, and they are able to identify the pain and suffering I was going through. That brought joy to me, happiness. None of the things I have, all the possessions, and I thought those were supposed to bring me happiness. But it didn't, because if it did, I would have felt happy think about it, when I was feeling most down..

You know the classical Chinese New Year that is coming up. In the past, what do I do? Well, I will usually drive my flashy car to do my rounds, visit my relatives, to show it off to my friends. And I thought that was joy, you know. I thought that was really joy. But do you really think that my relatives and friends, whom some of them have difficulty trying to make ends meet, that will truly share the joy with me? Seeing me driving my flashy car and showing off to them? No, no way. They won’t be sharing joy with me. They were having problems trying to make ends meet, taking public transport. In fact i think, what I have done is more like you know, making them envious, jealous of all I have. In fact, sometimes even hatred. 

Those are what we call objects of envy. I have them, I show them off to them and I feel it can fill my own pride and ego. That didn't bring any joy to these people, to my friends and relatives, and I thought they were real joy. 

Well, let me just share another story with you. You know when I was about your age, I stayed in king Edward VII hall. I had this friend whom I thought was strange. Her name is Jennifer, we're still good friends. And as I walk along the path, she would, if she sees a snail, she would actually pick up the snail and put it along the grass patch. I was like why do you need to do that? Why dirty your hands? It’s just a snail. The truth is she could feel for the snail. The thought of being crushed to death is real to her, but to me it's just a snail. If you can't get out of the pathway of humans then you deserve to be crushed, it’s part of evolution isn't it? What an irony isn't it?

There I was being trained as a doctor, to be compassionate, to be able to empathise; but I couldn't. As a house officer, I graduated from medical school, posted to the oncology department at NUH. And, every day, every other day I witness death in the cancer department. When I see how they suffered, I see all the pain they went through. I see all the morphine they have to press every few minutes just to relieve their pain. I see them struggling with their oxygen breathing their last breath and all. But it was just a job. When I went to clinic every day, to the wards every day, take blood, give the medication but was the patient real to me? They weren't real to me. It was just a job, I do it, I get out of the ward, I can't wait to get home, I do my own stuff. 

Was the pain, was the suffering the patients went through real? No. Of course I know all the medical terms to describe how they feel, all the suffering they went through. But in truth, I did not know how they feel, not until I became a patient. It is until now; I truly understand how they feel. And, if you ask me, would I have been a very different doctor if I were to re-live my life now, I can tell you yes I will. Because I truly understand how the patients feel now. And sometimes, you have to learn it the hard way. 

Even as you start just your first year, and you embark this journey to become dental surgeons, let me just challenge you on two fronts. 

Inevitably, all of you here will start to go into private practice. You will start to accumulate wealth. I can guarantee you. Just doing an implant can bring you thousands of dollars, it's fantastic money. And actually there is nothing wrong with being successful, with being rich or wealthy, absolutely nothing wrong. The only trouble is that a lot of us like myself couldn't handle it.

Why do I say that? Because when I start to accumulate, the more I have, the more I want. The more I wanted, the more obsessed I became. Like what I showed you earlier on, all I can was basically to get more possessions, to reach the pinnacle of what society did to us, of what society wants us to be. I became so obsessed that nothing else really mattered to me. Patients were just a source of income, and I tried to squeeze every single cent out of these patients. 

A lot of times we forget, whom we are supposed to be serving. We become so lost that we serve nobody else but just ourselves. That was what happened to me. Whether it is in the medical, the dental fraternity, I can tell you, right now in the private practice, sometimes we just advise patients on treatment that is not indicated. Grey areas. And even though it is not necessary, we kind of advocate it. Even at this point, I know who are my friends and who genuinely cared for me and who are the ones who try to make money out of me by selling me "hope". We kind of lose our moral compass along the way. Because we just want to make money. 

Worse, I can tell you, over the last few years, we bad mouth our fellow colleagues, our fellow competitors in the industry. We have no qualms about it. So if we can put them down to give ourselves an advantage, we do it. And that's what happening right now, medical, dental everywhere. My challenge to you is not to lose that moral compass. I learnt it the hard way, I hope you don't ever have to do it.

Secondly, a lot of us will start to get numb to our patients as we start to practise. Whether is it government hospitals, private practice, I can tell you when I was in the hospital, with stacks of patient folders, I can't wait to get rid of those folders as soon as possible; I can't wait to get patients out of my consultation room as soon as possible because there is just so many, and that's a reality. Because it becomes a job, a very routine job. And this is just part of it. Do I truly know how the patient feels back then? No, I don't. The fears and anxiety and all, do I truly understand what they are going through? I don't, not until when this happens to me and I think that is one of the biggest flaws in our system. 

We’re being trained to be healthcare providers, professional, and all and yet we don't know how exactly they feel. I'm not asking you to get involved emotionally, I don't think that is professional but do we actually make a real effort to understand their pain and all? Most of us won’t, alright, I can assure you. So don't lose it, my challenge to you is to always be able to put yourself in your patient's shoes. 

Because the pain, the anxiety, the fear are very real even though it's not real to you, it's real to them. So don't lose it and you know, right now I'm in the midst of my 5th cycle of my chemotherapy. I can tell you it’s a terrible feeling. Chemotherapy is one of those things that you don't wish even your enemies to go through because it's just suffering, lousy feeling, throwing out, you don't even know if you can retain your meals or not. Terrible feeling! And even with whatever little energy now I have, I try to reach out to other cancer patients because I truly understand what pain and suffering is like. But it's kind of little too late and too little.

You guys have a bright future ahead of you with all the resource and energy, so I’m going to challenge you to go beyond your immediate patients. To understand that there are people out there who are truly in pain, truly in hardship. Don’t get the idea that only poor people suffer. It is not true. A lot of these poor people do not have much in the first place, they are easily contented. for all you know they are happier than you and me but there are out there, people who are suffering mentally, physically, hardship, emotionally, financially and so on and so forth, and they are real. We choose to ignore them or we just don't want to know that they exist. 

So do think about it alright, even as you go on to become professionals and dental surgeons and all. That you can reach out to these people who are in need. Whatever you do can make a large difference to them. I'm now at the receiving end so I know how it feels, someone who genuinely care for you, encourage and all. It makes a lot of difference to me. That’s what happens after treatment. I had a treatment recently, but I’ll leave this for another day. A lot of things happened along the way, that's why I am still able to talk to you today. 

I'll just end of with this quote here, it's from this book called Tuesdays with Morris, and some of you may have read it. Everyone knows that they are going to die; every one of us knows that. The truth is, none of us believe it because if we did, we will do things differently. When I faced death, when I had to, I stripped myself off all stuff totally and I focused only on what is essential. The irony is that a lot of times, only when we learn how to die then we learn how to live. I know it sounds very morbid for this morning but it's the truth, this is what I’m going through. 

Don’t let society tell you how to live. Don’t let the media tell you what you're supposed to do. Those things happened to me. And I led this life thinking that these are going to bring me happiness. I hope that you will think about it and decide for yourself how you want to live your own life. Not according to what other people tell you to do, and you have to decide whether you want to serve yourself, whether you are going to make a difference in somebody else's life. Because true happiness doesn't come from serving yourself. I thought it was but it didn't turn out that way. With that I thank you, if you have any questions you have for me, please feel free. Thank you.

Click on the visual below to get to a video of Dr Richard Teo speaking on another occasion to dental undergraduates. He spoke on the same theme but added, among others, his views on what it means to be a good doctor. Watch it here on youtube.


Before you go, there are 2 important questions we all have to answer.

#1: What do you really want to get out of life?

#2: What can you offer the world that no one else can?

Wishing you the best of a purpose driven life.

The Transformative Power of Personal Projects : Ji Lee

Ji Lee is born in Seoul, Korea, and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. Ji Lee studied design at Parsons School of Design. He currently works as the Creative Director at Google Creative Lab in New York and teaches design at School of Visual Arts. In the past, Lee has worked as the branding director at Droga5 and art director at Saatchi & Saatchi.



Ji Lee is the founder of the widely publicized Bubble Project and the author of two books: Talk Back: The Bubble Project and Univers Revolved: a 3-Dimensional Alphabet.

Ji Lee in his earlier career learnt that he cannot depend on others to make things happen. So the solution  is - "I just have to do it myself".

The result was the a creative advertising initiative - the Bubble Project, in which Lee placed blank speech bubbles on ads around New York City.  He would leave the bubbles blank and wait and see what happens.

The masses responded and the project went viral, gaining Lee recognition and ultimately forwarding his professional career.
What personal projects taught him:
"
1) Personal and professional projects complement each other

2) Creating platform is powerful. Creating projects, not for myself, but for others to participate and collaborate.

3) Time is a concept which can be stretched, eg an hour can be stretch to become 3 hours.

4) Sharing is rewarding. "

The whole creative landscape has changed because of the internet - open source, creative comments.Give away something and there's always a giving back in a much bigger scale.

Here are some of the bubbles.