It has taken me a while to decide what I wanted to do in my life. My comfort zone has always been in advertising. It's my passion and where I feel most comfortable. But after 16 years of being an ad person, including the 5 spent at Ngee Ann Poly teaching advertising, I realised that something was missing in my life and that's why I made the decision to leave my high paying job as a Senior Account Director to start life afresh.
The thing is, my priorities changed and I wanted to spend more time with my daughter, who in a blink of an eye has transformed from a cherubic little baby girl, smiling at me from the comfort of my arms, to a little lady. I also wanted to do something that would give me a great sense of achievement but just didn't know what that was just yet.
I started looking for ways and means to utilise what God given talents I had, while allowing me to still contribute to the household income. It was hard and a lot of soul searching was done. I know that I couldn't have done it without my family's support and for that I am eternally grateful.
I was introduced to some angel investors in 2010 who wanted to set up a wellness centre here in Singapore as well as across Asia, starting with Thailand. It was a fantastic opportunity for me to be a part of a new enterprise and work on it from ground zero. it was such an exciting time for me. I spent almost the whole of 2011 commuting between Singapore and Bangkok working on ad hoc projects, and networking with suppliers and Thai contacts who were in the wellness industry. That was tremendous fun and what an experience too! Working with complete strangers was an unsettling feeling, not knowing if they understood me and what needed to be done. It worked out for a while but I missed home too much. Skype became an integral part of my life and helped me to overcome my feelings of being homesick but even then I knew that this wasn't going to work out in the long run. As fate would have it, the floods came and all my events scheduled for the end of the year was put on hold indefinitely. My contract was terminated at the beginning of 2012 and I found myself in familiar territory once again, searching for a new adventure.
Then came along a good friend who introduced me to Kids Invent!. Initially I was skeptical and didn't know whether this was what I was looking for. It took me a while to review the programme to really understand what the philosophy and pedagogy was about. But the more I looked at it, the more I was convinced that we needed a programme like this in Singapore.
My daughter is taking her PSLE exams this year and having journeyed with her for the past 6 years, I realised that she didn't have a life and that she was part of a huge majority of kids in this country that is experiencing the same thing year in and year out. Her life consisted of school, tuition classes and ballet lessons and very little of anything else. We always strive to ensure that our family is God-centred and that I believe is the reason why she is so down to earth and mature beyond her years. But she didn't enjoy studying, and learning was a chore more than a joy. It was a classic case of the passive, teacher-centred, rote learning environment that Singapore has built its education system on.
I enrolled her in one of the Kids Invent! holiday camps and volunteered to be a facilitator as well. The kids were so alive and engaged in all the activities. It was such a wonderful thing to see their eyes bright with excitement with each new challenge that they were given. And I was thoroughly amazed at what they were able to do. It was there that I was convinced that this was what I wanted to do and what I wanted to get involved in.
So I took the plunge...
No comments:
Post a Comment