In April 2014, 5 months after Typhoon Yolanda, our Balikbayan Project team (www.balikproject.com) returned to Tacloban City, Philippines to help implement the My Name Is Trauma workshop (www.mynameistrauma.com) with our Streetlight Philippines family (www.streetlight.org). Rob Boothe, one of my best friends, joined us for the first time in the Philippines while he was living in Thailand.

In Canada, Rob and I were in a band called “Rhythm Speaks” (from 2003-2009) and have sung and performed together at various musical festivals, collaborated with other musical groups, and hip hop crews. During our Balikbayan Project, this was a very meaningful opportunity to use our passion for music and be able to share it with our surrogate family in the Philippines. Rob created instant bonds with hundreds of people that year and ironically now lives in Manila with his beautiful wife and baby daughter. Despite the distance that separates our families, we still are connected for life through our music, faith, and love of positive hip hop self-expression.

13 years ago, I founded the Balikbayan Project (www.balikproject.com) and embarked on a humbling journey that would change my life forever. I made a promise to my dad before he died to visit the Philippines and share my passions of expressive arts through both traditional Filipino Music/Dance as well as contemporary Hip Hop. Life-longs bonds would be established with children and staff of Streetlight Philippines (www.streetlight.org). The irony was that I never intended to actually focus on sharing my professional but word got out that I was a pediatric OT specializing in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Families started showing up at our hotel room by the dozens. I was blown away by how grateful the families were for any second of support that I could give them. I shared as much as I could about some of the best practices at the time but to be honest, their resilience, grit, and creativity gave me more than anything I had to offer them. They shared that they did not have the money to pay for my services and I assured them that I started this project to volunteer and as a way for me to learn more about my family roots and culture. They were so grateful and each family would treat me as part of their own. My heart was full and still is to this day. Prior to coming back to Canada, the families surprised me with a memento card with a cartoon drawing of me that included heartfelt messages from a few of the families.

13 years has passed and so much has happened since: we have returned 8 more times, we have become Trauma Specialists, witnessed incredible feats of resilience from surviving Typhoon Yolanda to seeing kids grow into successful adults, Paula (my wife) and I have been able to share this experience with our own daughter Lena Glo, and we have even created a feature-length documentary that tells the whole story. This past week, I rediscovered this original memento thank you card given to me from that gracious group of families and was instantly flooded with emotion. It transported me to a time where I was trying to fulfill a life-long dream: to honour my parents by serving others. I was emotional because I now realized that I am so privileged to live this dream every single day of my life.

“The goal of the martial arts is not for the destruction of an opponent, but rather for self-growth and self-perfection. The practice of a martial art should be a practice of love – for the preservation of life, for the preservation of body, and for the preservation of family and friends.” – Dan Inosanto

I’ve been training Martial Arts for over 30 years and only 3 years ago began digging deeper into my Filipino Cultural Martial Arts Journey with my Kuya, Guro Oliver Salvador, Founder of Salvador Arnis Martial Arts.

The Salvador Family is very close to my heart. I am the Taekwondo Master Instructor for Leonidas, Oliver’s son, who is living with Autism. Leo has come so very far in his ability to focus, communicate, and self-regulate using my therapeutic approach combining taekwondo and occupational therapy.

It has been both exciting and humbling to begin a whole new journey of learning such a deadly art form however, it also is strangely calming and somewhat physiologically familiar. It is almost as if somewhere in my own family ancestry, there was a lineage of martial artist warriors.

My dad was a karate and judo instructor prior to his illness and it is probably pretty likely that our ancestors had to train to protect their own families and land. Even my mom began training in her 60’s and attained her Blackbelt when I left home for university!

I am grateful for the opportunity to re-discover this art not just for self-defense and self-regulation but to honour my ancestral roots.

“Wash your hands!” is such a simple but effective life skill that is important in our world now more than ever. It is a quintessential skill that we in the first world often take for granted: the fact that we have access to clean running water and soap makes us a privileged society that is able to proactively reduce the likelihood of dying from infections caused by viruses and harmful bacteria. This pandemic has me remembering how privileged we truly are. With great privilege comes great responsibility.

9 years ago, we created Noj Noj & Friends Pilot TV Show “Wash Your Hands” in the hopes of getting young kids and their families to get excited about learning and practicing their self-care routines. This was obviously our first time creating such a show and passion project on an extremely low budget (please laugh with us more than at us…actually at this point, if you are laughing at all, then we have done our job). In the wake of this pandemic, we hope this at least brings a little more joy and light-heartedness into the world! 

We went to Banff World Media Festival to sit down with executive producers from various broadcasters around the world and pitched our Pilot to as many people that would listen to us. We were among hundreds of other producers and content creators and a little overwhelmed with learning the ins and outs of the entertainment industry. We were given the feedback that the concept was good and that we should release it on the web to gain some traction and real-life viewer testing. Our team was a little discouraged considering how many hundreds of hours put into this 12-minute episode, 5am meetings and countless collaborations/rehearsals.

Why did we wait to share it with the world though? Because it wasn’t quite perfect yet? Because we got rejected from major broadcasters? Because there were no sound effects and background music edited in just yet? No, because of fear. Fear of it not being good enough or fear of it being rejected by the world or worse yet, fear of it not being liked by children and their caregivers.

Three weeks ago, I spoke with my co-creators of Noj Noj & Friends, Sam Pathirana and Kris Hendricks, telling them that now, more than ever is there a need to share our Pilot Episode because hand washing is important and at the very least, it is light-hearted and good help boost people’s spirits. They agreed but both thought that the video needs to be re-edited to include sound effects and musical scoring. I committed to taking a stab at becoming the sound designer and musical composer for the video and after about 12 hours of editing, we released the World Premiere of Noj Noj & Friends on YouTube.

Is it perfect? Nope. Is it good enough? I’m not even sure of that. Is it something that comes from our absolute heart and soul with the intention of helping children and their caregivers become more interested in a life skill such as handwashing? Absolutely without a doubt. I do not believe that this pandemic is the end of the world, but I do believe that it is the end of the world as we once knew it. I am inspired by the words of the late Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, “Don’t die with your song still inside you.”

Today is “World Story-Telling Day” and now more than ever, do we have an important responsibility to take important action on ensuring our world has a safe and healthy future. In the midst of a global pandemic with Covid-19, our generation has the opportunity to tell the story to our future children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, of how during this challenging time of human history, we did our part to ensure there was a future. I hope we get to share an inspiring story where we took care of one another (especially those that are most vulnerable).

If there is one story from my childhood that simply resonates with me the most during this time, it is The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. It is a story about a very loving Tree that loves a little boy and just wants the boy to be happy. The Tree is able to witness this boy grow into a man and eventually see him into old age. The Tree offers everything it can throughout the boy’s life so that the boy can be happy: from its branches for the boy to swing on, its apples for him to sell, its wood to build a house, and event its trunk to be cut down for a boat. The boy, now a very old man near the end of his life, comes back to see the tree (now literally a tree stump). The Tree tells the boy that they no longer have branches to swing on, apples to eat, or even a trunk to climb. The old man says he is too old to play or do anything and that he feels very tired. Even then, the Tree invites the old man to sit on its stump. “And the Tree was happy.”

Why this book is important to me: to me the tree represents both my mom and dad. Throughout my entire life, my parents wanted to give me nothing but the best opportunities to be my best self and serve others in this world. They nurtured me to gain skills in martial arts, music, dancing, and they lit a spark and drive within me to succeed at anything I could set my mind on. They have done this through tremendous unconditional love, sacrifice, and faith in us as their children and wanted us simply to choose happiness along the way. All they wanted in turn, was for us to be happy. They were happiest when they were giving to their children.

In many ways, this book is excruciatingly sad because my dad is no longer alive and I cannot spend time with him anymore (just like in the book where the tree wanted nothing more than the boy to simply climb, swing, and eventually just sit on the tree trunk). The majority of my privileged life, if I am being truly authentic and honest with myself, I must come to terms that I have really taken my parents for granted. However, it is also a reminder and wake up call of the fleeting precious time that I still have with my mom. I simply want to spend quality time together being happy. Both Paula (my wife) and I want to pass down the value of spending quality family bonding time with our daughter Lena while we still have the opportunity to do so. There is no better time like the present given the current state of our world to ‘give back’ to those who need it most, our most vulnerable (our elderly parents, grandparents, neighbours, citizens, our immuno-compromised, and our future generation of children). 

Let’s all do our part because our world is calling us to service: be The Giving Tree to those in need.