Tracing back the roots

I think it started in pri school, when we had this helping yr junior kind of program whereby I gave tuition to this pri 3 gal while I was in pri 6. I enjoyed the experience guiding her along in her maths. =)

I joined interact club whilst I was in sec 2. It was not just a second fiddle option after I failed to get into the netball school team (sulk) and was relegated to the netball club. Ha...but I enjoyed interact club, going to the Singapore Children's Society weekly in sec 2, and going to Jervois Special School weely in sec 3-4.

At JC, I didn't do much interact club activities, but nevertheless, I told the whole world I was going to study psychology at UK. During that time, there was a speaker at church who talked about impacting the business world, and that fascinated me, with ideas of talking to men in suits and business jackets. And I knew I wanted to do something vaguely related to psych and business.

Took a turn and studied business instead of psych. And whoa, coming to know "social entrepreneurship" in my year 2 internship at MCYS blew my mind away. Finally something that linked up business to social stuffs, a vague link and notion that was always there in my mind.

So it was social enterprise...I wanna be a social entrepreneur kinda thing. Or maybe corporate social responsibility...this aspect also showed me the possibility of combining business & social aims. And then gotto know Banyan Tree & Claire Chiang. Started wanting to do a business like hers, where I get to go to villagers and empower the people there to do crafts etc, to be self sustainable.

After I met J, this notion of social enterprise got steered to another aspect. His passion for the poor convicted me to look further into scripture and books to find out God's heart for the poor. After 1 year of searching, I can finally say that this conviction of God's heartbeat for community living, sharing and stewardship of money, is a conviction of my own, and not of J's.

Physical needs aside, this heart for meeting emotional needs remained. I feel for the marginalised, the sad and rejected.

A friend broke up with her bf recently, and as her tears fell on my shoulders, my heart almost broke with hers. On the same day, a colleague said he felt life was meaningless. Emotional needs.

Physical needs & emotional needs. So many empty hearts, so many hungry stomachs. For some time, I feel so overwhelmed. Can man live without God?

Studying the part time counseling psych dip has been good.

So here I am, in the financial sector & studying psychology. Maybe this was what the vision was about? Maybe I had to go through this journey to appreciate what SOCIAL entrepreneurship is about. Still have many more years ahead to go.