The goodness of people

Recently, I’ve caught several END OF THE WORLD/ARMAGEDDON type movies. Like “The Knowing”, and “The Day the Earth Stood Still”.

The vein of these movies always seem to be the same or have similar traits at least.

The end of the world, arrives because of man’s excesses of greed, avarice, and general badness. Entire cities topple, our defences are all futile, and well, good riddance to bad rubbish (In particular New York, which always seems to get blown away first).

And then somewhere, somehow, the goodness of human kind surfaces.  A mother’s love for a child, a protagonists’s selfless sacrifice, and either we are saved, or the world ends anyway, but we ain’t that bad.

These kinds of movies make me think. They make me think, firstly, that hey, we are pretty excessive, we take what we want, being at the top of the food chain without thinking or caring, and yeah, perhaps, one day that in itself will bite us in the ass.

The second thing it makes me think about however is, is the part about our reedeeming factors also true? Are we worth redeeming? Is mankind AS A WHOLE good? When you net it off, is our goodness greater than our badness?

To me of course, the question is merely rhetorical. I am a firm believer in the good of people. Yes, we may have our weaknesses, but when push comes to shove, we also witness defining moments of courage, selflessness, and generousity that inspire faith.

Recently my faith in the goodness of human kind has been strengthened.

It must have been about 2 months ago now, that a friend of mine darren, IM-d me, and sent me a link. He asked me if I knew about this blog, as he had seen a Nuffnang Ad on it.

I had a look at it, and this was my introduction to Charmaine.

I found out that Charmaine’s blog was in fact being maintained by her mother’s (Cynthia), friend Jolene.

The crux of this story is that Charmaine is a 4 year old girl, but is having to contend with a battle against cancer, specifically, a condition known as Neuroblastoma.

In Charmaine’s case, with local treatment, her chances of survival are just 10-20 percent. There is a treatment in the US however, at one specific hospital in New York, that ups her chances to 40-50%.

I read through other little details, about the family’s life, which I will leave you to discover for yourself, was sincerely  touched, and decided to see how I could help her.

The first thing I needed to do of course was visit Cynthia and Charmaine. I needed to do some basic due diligence to ensure the story’s accuracy. I owed this much at least to the people I was going to seek help from.

We entered Cynthia and Charmaine’s home, and whilst modest, I could see from the toys strewn around that the kids make up a big part of this family’s life.

Elaine, myself and huiwen met Cynthia and Charmaine herself. I asked Cynthia, how much money she needed? She answered $500K USD as an initial deposit. I then asked her how much money she had collected up to that point. It was then I saw Cynthia’s brave front collapse. It was almost as if hope deserted her, as she told me, she had collected 60,000 SGD up till then. She started crying.

I wasn’t sure what to do. Honestly I kinda felt like crying myself. I dismissed that thought immediately though, steeled myself, and looked cynthia in the eye. I said this to her, believing every word. “Cynthia, I know it is very difficult for you. But god always has a way. This I know. And I know something else, I know that there are many good people out there, and they will help you.”

I knew the first part was true, and I believed the second, but as we drove back that day, it was as if Cynthia’s heavy load, had been cast on our shoulders too.

What happened after that meeting with Cynthia was nothing short of extraordinary. Her story got immense coverage on many forms of media, and so many fundraising initiatives took place, on so many levels, that within a month, they had raised the funds needed for the initial deposit.

Score 1 for the goodness of people. But thats not the crux of this blog post.

The Nuffnang community in Singapore is an immense one. We have 40,000 bloggers and these blogs reach out to an additional 700,000 readers on a daily basis! I’ve said often and Tim shares my belief, that as a community, besides the ability to have fun and enjoy great parties/movie screenings together, we must also be a force for good, and help those less fortunate than ourselves. Only then can we truly call ourselves a community.

Therefore it was with this belief, that we launched Nuffnang’s drive to raise funds for Charmaine. By the time we had launched, in July, Charmaine had already hit 500,000 USD and was preparing to go to the USA. But knowing that this is just the start of the battle, we decided to plough on. Medical costs do not stop at a deposit, I’ve myself witnessed how medical costs and bills can rack up quickly, and there are many other considerations to take account of, including what happens after recovery? In any case, we are trying to create a situation in which money is the least of their worries during this difficult time.

Our stated aim was 80,000. An ambitious aim for sure, but I thought to myself, just 2 dollars from every single blogger, and we would have hit that. Personally I donated $2,000 and Nuffnang Pte Ltd, put in $3,000. To kick start the fundraising. So how are we doing now?

Well honestly, we are a LONG LONG way off from our stated target. In fact, we have only raised $6000 + so far, which is a little dissapointing. But then again, and this is the best part. Raine used to collect all our mail, but nowadays, I pip her to it. The reason why is that we’ve been receiving little packets of generousity in the mailbox daily now.

They look like these.

And inside?

One thing I’ve noticed is that even though we have a policy of transparency, and will list every single donor, the large majority of these letters than come in actually request anonymity.

You would think that most people would want to claim credit for a good deed. If you think this way, you would be wrong.

What is nice as well, is that very often, these packages also come with little notes …. ….

Or full blown letters like this!

My favourite though? Was a letter from CHIJ Katong Convent. When I got that envelope, I really wondered what it was.

I opened it to find this letter.

“Dear Sir,

We are a group of pupils from Secondary 202, CHIJ Katong Secondary, who did a bake sale of raisin scones, cakes and sandwiches last week in support of Charmaine’s medical treatment.

One of our literature stories mentions these food items and we thought that it would be a good idea for us to not only research and test the recipes, but also sell them to our schoolmates at recess for a worthwhile cause. Please accept our humble donation of $74.

Yours Faitfully,
Noor Azlynawati bte Jasmani (Ms)
Literature Representative
Secondary 202″

This letter and the many other notes I have read, have shown me the goodness and kindness of people.

It has renewed my faith. I hope it does the same for Cynthia and Charmaine. FIGHT ON, AND DO NOT GIVE UP, because there are sooo many people behind you.

Including one particular group of secondary 2 students in CHIJ Katong Convent!

And to all the doomsayers, and aliens who want to take this world down, read this blog post! Strangers caring for strangers, this in itself  is worth letting mankind prevail. I guess  there is a reason why they call it MAN-KIND.

p.s. ALL, please give what you can for Charmaine. Every little helps! Click here for details!