On Christmas eve, we would like to say a massive thank you to everyone for everything that you did in 2020!
In spite of a challenging year, we would like to look back at our experience with profound gratitude and celebrate the diversity of God’s gift in each one of us.
We are thriving because …
We receive kindness, empathy and compassion from people from all walks of life. In a situation like covid-19, we neither took a fight or flight response but retreated at home and sought affiliation with the people we trust, our family. For this, we are so blessed beyond measure;
We belong to a community that looks after each other. We were able to access far beyond the essential things because everyone shared their talent and expertise. And this has contributed to our happiness and wellbeing in crisis;
Front liners like delivery people, cashiers, shop attendants, security guards, janitors, maintenance people, plumbers, electricians, mobile medical lab personnel, farmers and fishermen, IT technicians, kitchen and appliance technicians not to mention the nurses and doctors and the rest of the hospital workers – they all have put their lives on the line for us all;
Friends and family from close to home and across the Atlantic whom we reconnected and bonded with during this time, we’ve created memories together;
We miss our in-person events and workshops but our access to technology although problematic enabled us to reach as many people than we would otherwise have been. We rolled out Bloom up and down the Philippines and held financial capability courses to thousands of participants. It inspired us and boosted our confidence;
We have the privilege of helping our community and sharing our resources in whatever way we can. As our expression of our solidarity, we raised funds to support the public school as they adapt to new tools. We admire the resilience, devotion, commitment and hard work of teachers, principals and school leaders as they help students cope and grow under this circumstance;
We chose to move forward and rethink some of our bad experiences during the lockdown by creating Bloom, Soar, Unleashed, Art for Good and a lot more courses and events! We rethought, redeveloped and redesigned the SELF courses as acts of resistance. We resist anger, sadness, desperation, fear… We realised that when we respond positively, we are able to unlock immense opportunities and hack agencies for action and transformation. These are the values that we want to spread particularly during this time.
We have so much faith for a better 2021 because God is with us and He will see us through the crisis.
Have a joyful and blessed Christmas!
