SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The Objectives

The Description

Participants in this project will dedicate 2 years of their youth into achieving these personal objectives. Each participant will be part of a team of 3 – 4 persons, and after receiving training in Singapore and Lima-Peru (our South American head office), will embark on this adventure of self-development and discovery.

This adventure brings the team to a South American country, where each team will spend their first year setting up base, building up network, acculturisation and immersion, settling down and commencing some small social work projects, as well as set up our club’s cross-cultural programs. In their second year, the team will embark on a year long project that seeks to develop local youths according to our club’s mission of Sharing Life, Living Life and Investing Life. In the third year, the voluntary term will be over and each participant has a choice whether to return to Singapore (and be replaced by another volunteer from Singapore) or extend his/her term.

In the subsequent years, it is the club’s intention to continue its operations in these countries. Although the nature of the project changes from one that is more entrepreneurial in nature, to one that is more managerial in nature, it still allows for the club’s members to achieve the above-stated objectives.

The project is totally self-funded and voluntary. Each participant is responsible for his/her own financial state. Although the club will start off each participant with some seed money, it is minimal. If the budget permits, the club will also pay for one one-year open ticket for each team member to the place of destination. When donations and raised funds permit, the club will do its best to cover operational cost*(legal fees, rental, project costs etc.) of the project as well.

Each participant is strongly encouraged to take up simple jobs for self financing when they are in the foreign country. At the same time, the club allows for the team to charge a small fee for any courses they may run under the name of the club, subject to approval from the head office.

The Details

Prior to send off – Training and Preparation
Each member is carefully placed in a team, with consideration to team dynamics and personal gifts, with the objective of creating team synergy. The team is set up at least 1 year before send off, where the team goes through a process of working together in various club projects as well as preparing themselves for the 2 years stint ahead.

The training and preparation involves:

1st year in foreign country – Acculturisation and Immersion
In their first year, the team is strongly encouraged to take their time in immersing themselves in the foreign culture and learning as much as they can about it. Also, the team is to use this time to discover themselves, as well as each other, within a foreign environment, where culture shock issues can be challenging. At the same time, the team embarks on the following:

2nd (and 3rd) year of project – Club Mission Set Up
In this second year (and proceeding into the 3rd year), the team will start to set up operations to achieve our club’s mission of Sharing Life, Living Life and Investing Life, locally, in the foreign country. This would involve contextualizing our Singaporean model, to fit the culture and norms of that particular foreign country. Some of the main activities would be:

The Candidates

Only ordinary members (for at least a year) of Generation ACTS Club International (S) are allowed to apply**. Each applicant must have served in the club’s main committees for a minimum period of 1.5 years. All applicants must be above the age of 21, and be able to prove financial ability to cover personal costs for a minimum of 2 years.

It is strongly encouraged that individuals apply as part of a team, as team applications will be given the first priority of acceptance. However, it is not automatic that all applicants that apply as a team will be accepted.

**Please note that entry is closed for entrepreneurs as 3 teams have already been set up – Teams Peru, Ecuador and Chile. However, applications for replacement teams (after the second year for the first team) are still open.

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SUCCESS STORIES

Nov 2006 - Team Peru Reflections

4 years ago, 5 young Singaporeans stepped out of the familiar shores of a land that they had called home for close to 30 years each. Drawn by a vision to challenge their personal limits and to discover the sense of purpose for their existence, they embarked on a journey that took them on a flight across the continents of Asia, Africa, Europe and North America, until they reached the cradle of one of the earliest civilizations in the world.

As they stepped onto the foreign soil of Peru for the first time, they were gripped by a mixed sense of exhilaration and trepidation at the same time. This is a land that jealously guards some of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the modern world – the enchanting lines of Nazca that have been weaved with perplexing geometrical themes, the citadels of Machu Pichu that are built by rocks put into place with such mathematical precision that modern men cannot re-create the structures despite the aid of modern science, and the deep unexplored reaches of the Amazon jungle.

We soon discovered that it was not only the vast stretches of natural landscapes that differed greatly from the concrete fortress of Singapore. We soon discovered differences in several other areas as well.

First Impact - cultural shock in the first few months

Our taste buds were quickly compelled to accustom themselves to the huge variety of Peruvian cuisines that we needed to get used to. This was the pleasant part of the cultural shock, as Peruvian cuisine is really not that bad. In fact, Peruvian cuisine is often recognized as one of the best in South America. Nevertheless, we often encountered problems in communication, as we tried to make up sentences by combining different phrases that we had picked up from a traveler’s phrasebook. The easy part was learning how to ask “What is this dish?” The tough part was trying to figure out what the response from the waiter meant. I am sure the waiter must have been very amused as we often stretched our heads forward in an intense listening posture, and blamed our lack of comprehension on the poor pronunciation of the waiter. Of course, even if the waiter had pronounced his words in a crystal clear fashion, we would not have understood what he was talking about!

Birthdays are huge events in Peru. There are instances of parents who splurge all their year’s income to organize a big birthday party for their kids. It is considered an adulterous crime if you forget your spouse’s birthday, and it is deemed worse than an act of treason if you forget your parent’s birthday. In our first month in Peru, the director of the language school where we were learning Spanish invited us to his birthday party. He told us to be at his place at 7pm, and like all Singaporeans, we arrived at 7pm sharp! To our surprise, the door of the premises was locked, and not a single soul was around when we arrived. Our host arrived about 15 minutes later, looked a little surprised to see us, but invited us into the premises very warmly nonetheless. It was only at around 9pm that some guests started streaming in, and the birthday celebration only started at around midnight! It was in a rather abrupt manner that we were introduced to the infamous “Tiempo Peruano”.  Literally, the phrase means “Peruvian time” and it points at the infamous lack of punctuality among the locals. As Peruvians operate more on a relational basis rather than a task-oriented basis, time is naturally not the most important consideration.
Coming from Singapore, where time is certainly one of the most prized commodities in town, it was rather unsettling for us initially to settle into the slower pace of life. This was accentuated by the issues of survival and the obstacles that we encountered initially at almost everything that we tried to do. As the money started to flow out of our pockets daily without replenishment, the urge to land ourselves a job grew stronger.

The problem about getting a job in Peru is that you need a visa before most companies would consider giving you a job. On the other hand, the immigration officers require you to have a job before they would grant you a visa! We were so flustered for a moment when we realized the cyclical conundrum that we were confronted with. It must truly have been an act of divine grace that a small school finally agreed to give two of our ladies – Serene and Ailay – teaching jobs, and to provide them with contracts to enable them to apply for visas. Delia also found herself a teaching job at a small school, but for some reasons that we still find hard to fathom today, her visa application was fraught with difficulties, and finally we had to find an alternative route to apply for a visa for her.

Meanwhile, the two guys did not work for the first year in Peru. Well, that is not exactly an accurate statement, for we worked our patience out throughout the first year trying to solve the various issues of getting our visas, registering our NGO and finding prospective partners for projects that our NGO could carry out.

Every country has its distinctive style of getting things done. Not every country is like Singapore, where the interpretation of the law is clear, where any administrative application would not take more than 30 minutes, and where partnerships could sometimes be forged merely through correspondence alone. One of our biggest lessons here was that correspondence and other paperwork alone never gets you anywhere too far in Peru. Here in Peru, relationships and connections are the only way to get things done. In other words, networking becomes a very important ingredient of success in Peru. That would mean face-to-face meetings and putting a premium on building relationships. For example, during a 45-minute meeting session with a potential project partner, probably 20 minutes could be spent sharing about your kids, about the weather and all other sorts of trivia.

Besides the external cultural shocks, we were also dealing with the eccentricities of one another. It is funny how living together brings out so many unexpected behaviors from one another. Most of us had never lived together in a communal living environment before, and so we had to learn many things all over again. The most difficult part must have been accepting one another in the house – accepting the way how some of us talk, accepting certain toilet behaviors, accepting our different standards of cleanliness and orderliness, accepting our different definitions of “fun” and “work”, and the list just goes on.

The struggle to overcome some of our negative reactions towards the cultural differences

Faced with all sorts of cultural backlashes, our energies were often drained out more quickly than usual during the first year. Nonetheless, we had to find ways and means to constantly rejuvenate ourselves. There were 2 main lessons that we learnt about rejuvenating yourselves when dealing with some of the shocks in a cross-cultural setting.

The first lesson is to keep ourselves busy – be proactive. For the 2 guys, we discovered that having nothing to do could create as much stress as having too many things to do! Initially, it was easy to find things to do – the visa issues, the club registration, the search for project partners, the setting up of the club office. However, once these things were done, we spent a lot of days waking up and wondering what to do for the day. In Peru, after you send in an application, or after you have a first meeting with a potential partner, there is a waiting time before the next step can take place. What do you do during these moments of waiting?

The obvious answer is to keep ourselves busy with something, but the practical implementation of that sound piece of advice was not easy. One of the difficulties was finding useful things to occupy ourselves – I was very busy for a couple of weeks playing Pinball on the computer, but I think it drained me out more than it rejuvenated me! I think we discovered that a very useful way to occupy ourselves was to go out and visit different local places, so that we could become better acquainted with the local community. We became adventurous and started exploring different parts of Lima, and in the process, we had a first-hand experience of local life in Lima, as well as spotted out various places to obtain different products at bargain prices.

We also took the extra time that we had on our hands to catch up on some reading or learning of the new language. Reading is always a good habit, as it helps us to quickly pick up new knowledge that could be useful. For example, the girls did not have teaching experience in schools in Singapore, and so it was quite a struggle initially when they first stepped into teaching jobs in Lima. However, they made an effort to pick up new skills through reading relevant articles, they worked on their Spanish by reading their bilingual Bibles studiously and most importantly, they were always proactive in making friends with their colleagues, from whom they must have picked up a lot of tips!

Another thing which we worked on was getting our NGO projects going. Our first projects included a free English class that was taught at a youth club in a poorer part of Lima, collaboration with an academic institute to teach some English to youths who came from the jungle regions in Peru, and English classes that were offered to some maids. Julian and I took turns to teach the classes. While attendance was low and the level of commitment of both the students and our partners was not too high, we picked up quite a bit of experience in teaching from what we were doing, and we also learnt invaluable lessons in structuring and organizing our projects for success in the future.

In fact, at the end of the first year, Julian and I were called up by one of the more prestigious English institutes in Lima, which offered us a freelance teaching job largely on the basis that they were impressed with the teaching experience we had with a NGO! In order to maintain a certain level of discipline and motivation to work during our earlier waiting moments at home, we had decided to dress up in working clothes when we woke up in the morning. This practice was very useful, and when we finally landed our job at the end of the first year, we did not have any adjustment phase to go through! 

The second lesson is to learn to relax and have fun. With our limited budget in the first year, we nevertheless decided that it was very important to relax and have fun. We tried to treat ourselves to some nice culinary delicacies once in a while – we often invented reasons to give ourselves a reason to celebrate, such as the first project that we started. We also tried to plan for some cheap holidays to nearby places in Peru. While our budget was rather tight in the first year, we learnt to release our grip on our wallet. It may sound like a contradiction, but it was all a matter of perspective. While continuing to maintain sound financial principles in our lives, we also learnt an important principle – our lives must never be managed by our finances. It was always meant to be the other way around, but for may people, materialism has become the master of their lives.

Over the years, our income and our networking increased in Peru. This enabled us to embark on bigger projects in the NGO. The challenges that we face today are rather different from the initial phase of winning the culture war, but they are no less demanding.

I think the experience that we have picked up in Peru is an invaluable one. The years we have spent in Peru have not only fortified our character, but they have also sharpened the quickness of our thinking, as well as equipped us with many practical life skills. Much more than that, we have made many new friends, and we have had the opportunity to try new things that we might never have done had we remained in our sheltered nest in Singapore.

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Oct 2006 - Team Ecuador reflects

Thus far, the four of us, Singaporean Social Entrepreneurs (SE), have spent between 2 to 3 years in Ecuador, South America. We started from scratch, learning a new language and experiencing a new culture in our first year, then establishing our branch NGO with the Ecuadorian government soon after.  We learnt to link up with other local and foreign NGOs, understanding and identifying the areas of needs that we could meet, and collaborating on projects that would benefit the people in this country.

To date, our NGO is registered with the Ecuadorian government and we can safely say that we are finally on our way in our projects.

All our projects are self-funded; we had to raise funds in order to meet operation and other costs. This was especially testing as volunteering on our own shoestring budget is really heart work and hard work.

In the midst of all that we did, we realized that we managed to use a lot of our past training in Singapore to apply the tools and knowledge as professionals in a totally new environment, where many people think differently, feel differently and speak differently.  At the same time, self learning and improvement became an intrinsic part of our lives, more than we realized when we were working in Singapore. In the end, unconsciously, we broke out of the mold to think beyond ourselves and the Singaporean 5 C's.

This once in a lifetime experience has forged us to become tough, adaptable and survivors in uncertain and trying circumstances. In addition, with the training and experience we had from Singapore, we believe that our experience would be an enormous asset in any part of the world. Throughout these few years, all of us have gained not only new skills but also an exposure that changed and broadened our mindsets and perspectives. 

Joshua Yeo Wee Leng… 

Personally, leaving Singapore for Ecuador is one of the boldest and best decisions I have ever made.  I have always been proud of Singapore even though I have quite a handful of close friends that keep complaining about Singapore, her government and 'suffocating' or 'routine' lifestyle.  However, living in Ecuador has helped me to appreciate Singapore and life even more.  Venturing from a developed and efficient society like Singapore into a completely different South American society like Ecuador was really an eye opener and mind expander.  Even more, having to start from scratch and bless society at the same time challenged and changed me so much for the better.

From a kiasu, cold, complaining and always 'thinking within the box' person, I have transformed into a more caring, passionate, constructive and creative person.  All this due to the training and life lessons I received from overcoming many challenges met as a social entrepreneur in a totally different culture and language environment.  As I grew in managerial and communication abilities through the social projects set up, I also picked up the best thing from the Latin culture... passion and strong relations among family and friends.  Life with all its senses will never be the same for me again after this.

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June 2006 - A Personal Rendition from Sharon Wong, Social Entrepreneur, Team Ecuador

Dream: This is more the "why even do it in the first place" bit. Two things: First, ever since I can remember, I have always dreamed of experiencing a different land, a different language and a different culture......I believe Singapore is and will always be my first love and home, but somewhere deep inside I knew I wanted to experience the bigger world out there for myself. Second, everybody always talks about "making a difference" with their lives.  I figured if not now, then when? And going cross-cultural offered me a really great opportunity to turn this dream of making a difference into reality, by helping those who are really in need, in a relatively unknown and unreached (at least by Singapore) continent and country.

Adventure: I have been on student exchange programs, traveled around Asia and Europe on business trips and been on numerous vacations with family and friends before. Nothing even comes close to my experience here over the past two years. It has so far truly been the adventure of a life time. Of course even a short term trip is better than nothing. But if time and opportunity afford, there is really nothing like immersing yourself in a different culture - living, working and growing in a different land.

Of course implicit in the word "adventure" comes the element of risk J This also explains why I chose "D.A.R.E." to sum up my thoughts about going cross-cultural. I personally believe it's something Singaporeans need much more of - this daring and risk-taking element. So many of my friends and acquaintances have said to me "I wish I could do what you are doing...BUT would I be able to adapt? BUT what's going to happen after you return to Singapore? BUT will you be able to find a job easily after having been away? BUT you are a single, shouldn't you give more thought to settling down and having a family rather than running off and doing crazy things like that? (italics are my paraphrase of what they were obviously thinking!) My answer to most of the questions above is...I honestly don't have a foolproof answer.  But if you look for foolproof guarantees all the time in life, thinking about what could have been or what is to come, you may just miss out on many beautiful, priceless, life-changing adventures along the way.

Risk-free = adventure-free = "same ole, same ole". Looking back on my 2 years here so far, I have a few questions of my own: How can you put a price tag on that which money can't buy? Why be afraid to trade that which you cannot keep for that which you cannot lose?  Money, titles, even job security, cannot be kept.....well not forever anyway. But the beautiful experience and memories of truly living life differently, of sharing and investing what you have with those who need it more…..these are things that will last a lifetime, or perhaps even beyond.

Reality: This portion has to be included so that this doesn't just sound like some glossy travel advert and, more importantly, because it is true. Every dream has at least a little bit of a rude awakening at some point. "Reality" for me set in in the first few months away from home. Adjusting to a different climate and environment, a foreign language, just being away from the familiar......though exciting, was also definitely challenging. I missed my family and friends more than my chicken rice or char kuay teow though :)  It was also an interesting experience being part of a minority race/group in a different land - as a Chinese in Singapore, I was always part of the comfortable majority. Being out of your comfort zone in a foreign place, having a different skin color from the rest....this has been an invaluable learning experience for me. Encountering the warmth and welcome given by some, versus the inevitable prejudices and stereotypes harbored by others.  It has definitely taught me not to take racial harmony and acceptance for granted and also offered me the opportunities of sharing my culture and heritage with my new found friends over here.

Enrichment: What I have learnt and received from this cross-cultural experience has truly enriched my life in many different aspects:

It has enriched my soul and spirit - Ecuador is a breathtaking country - literally (because Quito the capital where we are based is almost 3000 m above sea level) and figuratively (after 2 years, I am still filled with a sense of awe and blessedness every day when I wake up and see the picturesque surrounding Andes mountains). Life here is still busy (you can take the Singaporean out of Singapore, but not the Singapore "achievement" mentality out of the Singaporean!)....as we dedicate ourselves to our projects and our work etc. However, it is definitely less hurried and "rat-race" like...and I have had more moments to reflect, to breathe, to appreciate things and to grow.

It has enriched me physically - We have adapted to the local cuisine here (which is pretty good!) and have also discovered our favorite Chinese food haunts that we can run to for refuge when necessary. I eat at least as well as in Singapore and definitely more healthily.....I definitely exercise more than I used to (the climate here is much more comfortable for walking!).....and when I last went back home and did a health check-up, I was pronounced in a better physical state than I had ever been before! 

It has enriched me in terms of skills and work experience - Language skills for example - being able to speak and write fairly fluently in Spanish was something that I never managed to accomplish in Singapore (even with months of lessons), but now I can quite comfortably and confidently communicate to the locals here in their heart language. It is such an awesome experience....talking, joking, singing etc. in a language that was completely foreign just a couple of years ago....

Our different projects have also offered me the opportunity and experience of working with various diverse people groups - children, youth, working adults and professionals.

I have had experiences that I probably would never have had back in Singapore.  Of course, some of it involved working with the underprivileged like teaching English and doing projects with orphans. But there were also unexpected doors and opportunities that opened up:  For example, recently we ran a series of seminars about both Chinese and Ecuadorian cultures. As Singaporean Chinese who had lived and worked in Ecuador for some time, we were in the unique position of being able to share our professional and personal experiences in English, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese!  We were able to help bridge the gap between the local employees in an established company here and their China bosses. A very practical experience of sharing and investing what we have in order to meet the needs of others. And even as we gave, we ourselves were enriched - because through such opportunities, we gained professional experience and fine-tuned existing skills and abilities.

It is true that I can probably never get back the same life as before because I took this cross-cultural “dare”. But that is because my life has changed, my perspectives have changed, and I myself have changed. For the better, I believe.  I would highly recommend this amazing journey and experience to all. “Life will never be the same again” need not just be a cliché or a Chan Brothers slogan anymore!

A Personal Rendition from Sharon Wong, Social Entrepreneur, Team Ecuador

“Most people live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try.” Mary Kay Ash

“Too many times we stand aside and let the waters slip away, till what we put off till tomorrow has now become today. So don't you sit upon the shoreline and say you're satisfied. Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the tide.”  Anonymous

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June 2003 -Nearly Crazy, Pioneering Gen ACTS Chile

Nearly Crazy

"In the beginning of time, God created the wonders of the world. When he was finished, however, he saw that he had many leftover pieces. He had parts of rivers and valleys, of oceans and lakes, of glaciers and deserts, of mountains and forests, and of meadows and hills. Rather than to let such beauty go to waste, God put them all together and cast them to the most remote corner of the earth. This is how Chile was born."- A Chilean Legend

Looking more closely, it is easy to see how this legend emerged. Chile is a very long, thin country that is located in the extreme southwest of South America. The closest neighbors include Argentina to the east, and Bolivia and Peru to the north. The entire country at its widest point is only about 300 miles wide, yet it is 2,500 mile in length. Chile is as geographically isolated as it is diverse. To the south, Chile reaches into the cold and inhospitable Antarctic zone. To the west, the shores are pounded by hundreds of miles of the great Pacific Ocean. In the north, Chile is home to the Atacama Desert, one of the most arid lands in the world. Finally, to the east, the huge Andes mountain range runs nearly the entire length of the country. Because of such isolation and challenging land forms, Chile has become of a country of people who are strong, proud, and extremely innovative. The population of Chile is approximately 15.5 million people. Of these, 80% live in Chile's urban areas, with nearly half living in the Santiago/Metropolitan Region.

A group of crazy Singaporean volunteers first arrived in Santiago in October/November 2002. It was actually a pre-trip of the Social Entrepreneurship project prior the actual entry. Our objectives were to gather as much information as we could pertaining to various issues such as living costs, job opportunities besides  linking with various organizations for future volunteer projects etc. And we were to do all these without a proper or fluent working knowledge of Spanish!
But miracles have not ceased. We pulled through with lots of “si-si” and “no-no” without understanding what we were “si”-ing or “no”-ing to! In the end of the pre-trip, what we discovered and researched confirmed that our volunteer adventure for the next 3 years was a little crazy but possible.

After returning from that trip, the team began planning to set foot into Chile permanently for the next 3 years. We were very excited yet anxious as there were many questions and uncertainties that came to my mind. Besides the never ceasing question of whether or not we were a little nuts bugging my mind, there was the immense challenge of achieving the objectives of our project of setting up a representative office, as well as entering into volunteer projects with the local organizations there.

But finally, the opportunity of doing something totally out of the normal proved to be too luring. On the 22nd March, 2003, two lonely and non-Spanish speaking guys touched down in Santiago Chile. We were a little confident but totally unprepared for the things that were to happen to us in the next few months.

Spanish – Chilean style

Having secured a service apartment for 1 month, we decided that the first obstacle we needed to tackle was the language barrier. We started our Spanish course in the first week of April.

The first lesson was an unforgettable one. Almost immediately, we were pushed into learning the language. Our instructor, Miguel stepped into our class and started to ask us questions in a language that sounded really like Spanish (we discovered it was Spanish, Chilean style, eventually). All the nightmares of having to study and take exams again came flashing back and thoughts of “Rats. What did we get ourselves into?!!”.

But Miguel was kind and thankfully, very bilingual as well! Under his guidance, we found ourselves enjoying our lessons more and more. We discovered that Chilean Spanish sounds very different from “normal” Spanish. Chileans often aspirate the "s" sound. A clear example is “mucha gracia” which is supposedly pronounced as “muchas gracias”. Also, the "d" sound is often aspirated in past participles and words that end in "do" or "da" - for example, “comía” instead of “comida”. Also, Chileans love using dichos – slang that only Chileans understand. If you're a foreigner, you will soon discover, like we did, that to gain a Chilean friend, you need dichos. ¿Cachay?

Furnishing an apartment

After our lease on the service apartment expired, we needed to look for another apartment. That was our next immediate obstacle – finding a permanent place of stay. After viewing more than 8 apartments, we finally got a place at La Florida, about 20 minutes by metro (or MRT in Singapore) from the Santiago central.

Generally, apartments in Santiago are rented out unfurnished. That started our next adventure… of headaches. We had to purchase so many items, with our limited knowledge of both Spanish and places around Santiago that sold furniture!

In the end, we somehow managed to buy what we needed, after going from one place to another, under the recommendations from passer-bys to taxi-drivers. What was especially memorable about these shopping episodes was the communication and understanding (or the lack of it!) between us and the shopkeepers. Never in our lives did we have to bargain so long and hard to save money. The hardest thing was that we were expending more energy and time trying to explain that we wanted a discount of 10% than in actually getting that discount!

Registering the club

We were grateful to have the Singapore Consul in Santiago to help us with the registration. We would have gone crazy just by trying to fill and file the registration papers by ourselves in Spanish!

However, we soon discovered that registering the club presented a different set of challenges. These challenges had a common solution – patience, the more unlimited, the better.

Like in all other South American countries, any form of registration would be greeted with the word “bureaucracy”. However, in Chile, it is almost an accepted way of life. Everywhere we turned, this famous word pops up, either as a reason for delays or for “non-compliant” documents or procedures etc. If is fascinating to note that it is even accepted as an explanation for the slowness in which things are being done.

However, we have emerged from these experiences more patient than ever before. Those long queues for National Day tickets or freebies in Singapore under the hot sun? No problem.

Getting I@WORK going

Now with the basic infrastructure set up, we moved on to our next challenge – getting our club projects started. For Chile, after research, we chose to use our internship program, I@WORK, as our very first local Chilean project.

Very uncertain and unsure about the best way to start, we decided to just visit the universities, knock on the doors of the dean or the international relations director and sell our program. Upon evaluation, this method sounds a bit crazy, especially since we were not yet registered or able to give a decent presentation in Spanish.

However, we were really surprised and glad that whatever we did succeeded!! Surprisingly, the knocking on doors and presentations in broken Spanish worked. We discovered two things that helped us. Firstly, the warmth and friendliness of Chileans took us by surprise. Unlike Asians, Chileans are more willing to talk, listen and discuss patiently. We think they were simply too nice to reject us! But secondly, the fact that our club is a Singaporean club opened many doors. Chileans, especially those who have received education, know and have heard about Singapore. More than anywhere else in South America, it seems like Chileans know about Singapore. In fact, there exists a certain level of respect for Singapore’s development and economic status in Asia. That worked very much in our favor.

After being in Santiago-Chile for close to 8 months, all our doubts about actually leaving Singapore were replaced by fulfillment and joy for having done so. Yes, we nearly went crazy in the first few months in the foreign city of Santiago, trying to accomplish the seemingly impossible with almost nothing to start with. But now, after all these experiences, we are crazily joyful and thankful that the impossible has become possible.

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June 2003 - Are we crazy? Pioneering Gen ACTS Ecuador

That is a question we have found ourselves asking so many times in these past years. I guess for a typical Singaporean, the thought of trading the comforts of a secure job, of a nice home, of an excellent standard of living etc.… for an adventure, that involves volunteering all your heart, brains and brawn in a country on the opposite side of the world, where everyone looks different and talks weird, is not normal and really rare. Now extend the duration of that adventure to 3 years… well, now, do you think that is crazy?

Well, crazy or not, my team of 3 people from Singapore did just that – left all the comforts and headed for a 3-year volunteer stint in Quito, Ecuador. Our adventure actually started a couple of years ago in our club, Generation ACTS Club International (S), where through the many training opportunities within the club, we came together as a team to prepare for this adventure of a lifetime.

Representing the Club
The club trained us in many ways and through many avenues in the lead up to our stint in Ecuador. When Team Ecuador first got together, we were already actively involved in the club’s activities, both as participants and as organizers. Many of these activities taught us about having an “others-first” mentality and eventually, we grew in appreciation and personal assimilation of our club’s vision and mission, which, on hindsight, helped tremendously, now, as we represent our club in Quito.

Team Building
Another part of the preparatory training was simply the time spent working and playing together. Coming together as Team Ecuador was not easy. We had to learn to accept each other, overcome problems together, eat together and stay together. A team is never built in one night and our team learnt that the hard way. But today, our team, Team Ecuador, will give any “Survivor” or “Amazing Race” team a run for their money.

Cross Cultural Training
Cross cultural training was something else we went through together. Quito and Singapore are literally poles apart, and both language and cultural barriers did not help to make our adventure an easy one. Furthermore, we had to also learn to understand some of the potential threats to our work of setting-up a representative office overseas.

Country Research
We did a lot of that. A lot of time was spent on the internet, reading books, country reviews, and meeting up with people etc… basically, just getting our hands on all things Ecuadorian and learning endlessly about them. We are thankful for excellent support from the Ecuadorian Consul in Singapore, who gave us helpful advice and assistance. We also had a foretaste of the Latin culture during a social function at the consul’s home. One simple conclusion of Ecuadorians – they are such warm and hospitable people.

Finance Management
As the word ‘volunteerism’ implies, our work in Quito, Ecuador, is totally self-funded and voluntary, where each one of us was responsible for his/her own financial state. Hence, it was necessary to have sufficient savings and to budget our finances for at least 2 years. It was not easy but certainly, a lesson useful for even our future. In this area, we were much blessed by the commitment of the club, well-meaning friends and club members, who helped us through their much appreciated contributions.

As Team Ecuador looks back now, the unanimous agreement of the most invaluable lesson we learnt is simply the lesson of character. In our adventure so far, having been in Quito for almost 5 months, we have learnt to be better people than before. Our characters have taken a molding towards the better in areas we thought never existed and would be appalled at upon discovery. We have grown in appreciation of ourselves, of others, of life in general. We have grown to treasure the small things in life that many would take for granted.

In the end, I have to still agree that this adventure is nutty and crazy. Yes. A crazy adventure it certainly was and is. However, as much as anyone would be crazy to participate in it, anyone would be crazy not to as well.

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June 2003 - Pioneering Gen ACTS Peru

Who are we - crazy entrepreneurs or an enterprising craze

Helen Keller said, "True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose." Albert Schweitzer said, "One thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve." These statements remind us of a paradoxical principle which states that the path towards self-fulfillment is found in the pursuit of altruistic objectives.

There are 5 of us here who are currently stationed here in Peru as permanent staff and volunteers of the Peruvian branch of our Singapore club. The current team comprises of a variety of professionals, including a training director, a lawyer, a marketing manager who used to deal with technology products, a social worker and an administrative executive with an international shipping firm in Singapore. We are all here as social entrepreneurs.

You may be wondering what social entrepreneurship all about. Well, in a nutshell, it is about investing our lives in a foreign culture to build communities that demonstrate positive values and an altruistic and enterprising spirit. Although we do receive a small sum of seed money from our Singapore headquarters to set up the initial infrastructures, the primary capital that is invested into this venture is our lives. And the target audiences of our venture are the lives of the youths from various communities in South America. As social entrepreneurs, we seek to demonstrate by example, maintaining positive values in our interactions with the people we interact with, and by using our spirit of enterprise to raise enough finance for our living expenses and the expenses of our projects.

Immersed within the contagious fever of social entrepreneurship

The spectrum of adventures that we have encountered since we stepped into Peru range from the exotic to the bizarre. Registering ourselves as a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) was supposed to be an administrative formality, but it slowly uncoiled into a nerve wrecking ordeal that lasted eight months. Facing stoic bureaucracy and a Latin culture that was simply inexplicable to us at the beginning, we had to weather several setbacks before we finally registered ourselves. At the end of the day, we learnt many invaluable lessons about negotiating and communicating within the Peruvian culture.

I remember how our first lawyer almost got us registered as a social club rather than a NGO, because our name contained the word “club”. Unknown to us, in South America, the word “club” carries with it the idea of a social club. An organization that is dedicated towards altruistic projects is referred to as a NGO here, a concept that virtually does not exist in Singapore! The etymological mazes that we had to negotiate did not end here. In Singapore, a person who has a bachelor degree from the university is a full-fledged graduate who is accepted as a professional in society. In Peru, a bachelor degree is only an intermediate stage in your university education. To be a full-fledged graduate, you need to obtain a certificate known as the “professional title” after having obtained your bachelor degree. It took us quite a while before we managed to unravel the differences between the educational systems in both countries, and even then, it proved to be an impossible task to explain the differences due to the perplexing use of the common word “bachelor” in both systems, which has a different interpretation in the two educational systems.

Setting off a contagious and feverish revolution in Peru

We finally got our NGO registered after nine long months. It was a relief as we could finally get our projects underway. We were full of enthusiasm as we started sending out letters of invitations to various potential project partners. We were soon to realize that letters don’t make partners, relationships do. In Singapore, we were used to a very systematic methodology towards setting up projects – first, you identify your mission statement and then you identify the potential partners who could complement our mission, and then you follow that up with a formal letter of intent, and then a business meeting is set up, where negotiations are carried out, culminating in a formal contract.

Getting up a clearly defined mission statement was the easy part. We were primarily here in Peru to bring about holistic development to the youths through the medium of education. With that in mind, we divided our projects into three large categories – the “La Vida Maxima” programs, the CulturalX programs and the ACTSPeru programs, and then we started sending out the letters. We were rather disappointed when there was no response after more than a week. 

We decided to call up the organizations directly rather than send them letters. Surprisingly, this worked much more effectively! Within a month, our projects were up and running! A description of the projects that we have here in Peru is outlined in Appendix A which is attached to this article.

It was hard work in the beginning. In our first assignment with the youth club of the Municipal of Surco, we had four participants. They all had zero level of English prior to attending our lessons. Furthermore, they all came from financially disadvantaged backgrounds, and some of them did not even have the privilege of attending any formal education, which resulted in a significantly lower cognitive proficiency. For example, we were once teaching on the subject of telling the time, when we realized that some of them did not know how to read a 12-hour clock! As a result, we had to teach them how to read the 12-hour clock in Spanish, before we could even start on the topic itself. Another problem that we faced was the lack of commitment of the participants. Sometimes there were no legitimate reasons for their consistent absenteeism, although some had valid excuses. One of the participants had to quit the course halfway, because her husband decided that she should stay at home to look after him instead of going out to learn English!
Given the odds that we were confronted with, it was especially gratifying to see the progress of the students that we had with us.

Another project that presented a steep learning curve for us was our English classes with about 120 orphans in an orphanage in Chorillos. Many of them were extremely naughty and simply could not sit still in class! Getting some sense of order into the class took almost half of the time, with only about half an hour left for the actual teaching. Getting children to pay attention also proved to be an art in creativity. We had to constantly devise creative methods of motivation to keep the students alert and attentive in the class. Some of the methods which we used include the meting out of rewards such as stickers for good behaviour.

Looking back, our projects had a little bit of a slow start, but there is great satisfaction and joy as we see the gradual progress of our projects. The hindsight of seeing lives transformed one at a time and the vision of being able to play a part in engineering social revival in Peru provides us with a wonderful motivation to continue our work here in Peru. Although in a sense, we are first-timers in the work we are doing, first-timers are also the people who make history. Every time we finish teaching one of the English classes, we feel a sense of deep satisfaction and excitement, knowing that another page of history has just been written.
 
“The good influence of godly citizens causes a city to prosper, but the moral decay of the wicked drives it downhill.”
- A wise saying of King Solomon as recorded in the Book of Proverbs in the Bible (The Living Bible Translation), Chapter 11, Verse 11.

We strongly believe that economic success in a country is the result of a social revival, in which good moral values spring out of the hearts of every member of the society, as observed more than 3000 years ago by the wise king Solomon. When people start to cultivate good moral values and beliefs in their personal worldviews, values such as altruism, patience, tolerance, diligence, faithfulness and fidelity, their attitudes towards work, towards others, and towards authority figures such as the government will also be transformed, leading to transformed lifestyles that will influence every segment of society and bring about prosperity at every strata of society.

We often hear criticisms about the prevailing government. There appears to be a presupposition among the people that the solution to their problems is found externally, through structural and policy reforms carried out by the government. This presupposition is challenged by an Australian professor of economics in a frank assessment of the situation in his country. He wrote:
“An issue which received little attention from politicians and media in the election campaign is the spiritual and moral decay of our nation.
Morality is essential for the future of a civilization.
Morality includes such values as honesty, the pursuit of truth, responsibility, duty, fairness in interpersonal relations, concern for one's immediate neighbours, respect for property, loyalty and duty to one's spouse and children, the work ethic and keeping one's word. The emphasis is upon the duty and responsibility of the individual. No society can function efficiently or humanely and no civilisation can endure without these values.
The failure to assume responsibility for one's actions and the tendency to look to government for everything are among the consequences of the break down of traditional morality.”
We believe that the values of altruism and enterprise that we are promoting are vital ingredients for the advancement of society in South America. This view is supported by the research of contemporary analysts.

For example, the contemporary economist Fukuyama refers to "high trust" societies such as Germany, Japan and the United States, where thriving economies are to be found organised around large corporations. By contrast, in "low trust" societies such as those in Latin America, businesses are family owned and operated because the families do not trust outsiders to run the businesses. Fukuyama argued that the lack of trust in this situation results in less vital economies. By promoting altruism and enterprise, we encourage every Peruvian to look outwards beyond the little closet of their personal lives that is fenced up by the perimeters of family relationships. We help them to capture the idea of the extended family in society, where each one of us has an altruistic heart of wanting to help another less privileged member of society.

We know that the road ahead is not an easy one, but we are encouraged to advance forward courageously on the conviction that we will see fulfilling results at the end of the road. Someone once said, “Everyone dies one day, but not everyone really lives!” At the end of our adventure here in Peru, we believe that we will be able to look back and declare that we have indeed lived it well!

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