LIM JOE ONN
Youth Social Entrepreneurship:
Building a Sustainable Community
A talk on Youth Social Entrepreneurship by Antonio Meloto, Chairman & Founder of Gawad Kalinga.
Antonio Meloto, Chairman & Founder of Gawad Kalinga, held a talk to share his personal stories and insights on Youth Social Entrepreneurship.
His company, Gawad Kalinga, transforms slums into peaceful and productive communities. It works with 2,400 communities in the Philippines and other nations where poverty exists including Cambodia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.
Engaging all sectors of society and mobilizing them to work together to end poverty, the organization is building a global army of volunteers on the ground and online, working with schools, corporations, and other organized institutions to mainstream a culture of caring and sharing.
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"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." -Maimonides
This quote is applicable to charity as charity is not just about giving money and other forms of aid to the poor, but teaching them to have human dignity and rise from poverty. This was told to us by Mr Antonio Meloto, founder of Gawad Kalinga, a reputable charity organization in the Philippines.
Poverty is a big issue as it is the source to many problems such as theft and many other sorts of crime. In order to reduce poverty, we must know the roots of this problem, which is lack of proper education. Caught in the cycle of poverty or unemployment and being unable to deliver, many poor Filipino men lose motivation to be productive members of society and instead turn towards negative activities such as drinking, gambling, drugs and violence.
However, many Filipinos have been pursuing individual gain without caring about the effort to work for the common good. Hence, those who possess material wealth did not care about many others who are in need. Therefore, Gawad Kalinga's attack on poverty is rather revolutionary. It does not address poverty purely through financial aid, but also via environmental and social engineering, which creates self-sustainable communities.
For me, the talk given by Mr Meloto is truly inspiring. It gives me a sense of motivation to help those in need. It reminds me that we, living in conducive environments, should not turn a blind eye to people living in poverty. This is due to the fact that if the poor are neglected, social problems will arise and we might not be able to live in peace as some of the poor might be involved in negative activities such as theft and burglary as they might think that these solve their problems.
In order to abolish poverty, proper education must be given to the poor and restore dignity in them, making them better human beings. I believe that if the problem of poverty and education is solved in our country, the state of security, economy and living of the nation will become better.