Giving is good
- Digoy Fernandez -
WHEN I was just a young and precocious kid, I was treated to stories at home and in some of our parents’ friends’ houses about brave and intrepid young men and women who went on medical and aid missions to countries in war-torn Indochina. There were pictures of doctors and nurses treating wounded and sick victims of both poverty and the seemingly unending conflicts that seem to have plagued Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam in those days. My father told me of some volunteers who gave their lives heroically in countries other than their own, in pursuit of personal or other ideals. They had a name for this project: Operation Brotherhood.
The idea remained fixed in my mind for quite some time. I quickly volunteered for a summer job in a local version of OB when they set up shop in a squatter relocation area to minister to the needs of disenfranchised families adjusting to a new and hostile environment. There was a program aimed at teaching crafts to some mothers and children. (Guess who was tasked to go to the metropolis to sell the finished products consisting of bags and fans made from native materials?) We had to work the pump in a nearby well for water to drink and bathe in. Then, there was that late night when I was roused from a sound sleep to help in the delivery of a baby — something I was totally ignorant about — and got to simply hold a flashlight in place so the midwife could do her thing. All in all, a heady and enervating experience for a city-slicker used to having househelp cater to every need or whim.
This and a few other adventures of a similar nature opened up a whole new world of service to the less fortunate that, for a few years, found expression in a series of leftist excursions. But common sense prevailed and it did not take long for this desire to help others to seek a new battleground in the warrens of the corporate world. It has never been easy to do charity work in the corporate context, and this is still probably true to a certain extent to this day. Admittedly, more people are aware of the need to work to uplift their fellowmen by providing better opportunities for self-improvement, whether these be in the form of palliatives or in terms of deep-seated and long-term programs. We are not here to judge such efforts, but to express gladness at the increasing number of executives aware of the need to get involved in socially uplifting projects.
