He determined to find the athlete and after a few hours of searching, his colleagues got the phone number.
“I called him and said, in all my corporate arrogance, ‘I am going to help you’. He laughed and replied, ‘How are you going to help me? Maybe I am going to help you.’”
That phone call set the path for a new journey he was to take with Marc Herremans. Together, they set up a grassroots foundation to help people in wheelchairs.
A few years later, still working with DHL, Philpott reached out to the Christopher Reeve Foundation. He wrote to the Reeves Foundation through a contact address on the website, never thinking he’d get a response. But he did and that led him to fly to the US where he met “Superman” and for four years, the foundation helped raised awareness to support Reeves’ cause. In that time, Reeves also became Mark’s life mentor.
“The one thing he taught me was humility,” says Philpott, who left New Zealand at 15 to become a tennis pro in Australia until an injury dashed his hopes of a lengthy tennis career.
A few years ago, Philpott relocated with DHL to Singapore, leaving his work for the Marc Herremans Foundation behind. One Christmas, while in Sydney (where his sister lives) and shopping for presents in a mall, he collapsed. He woke up in hospital, to be told he’d had a massive cardiac seizure even though they couldn’t find any medical reason why he should have had that cardiac arrest.
“They told me it was probably stress-related, that I had probably disconnected from myself.”
And so Philpott set about to change his life once again. In 2009, he set up Humaneity, an organization to enable positive transformation, by connecting NGOs, Corporations, Individuals, Youths and Social Enterprises. Its vision is to “change the social conscious thinking and behavior of every human being around the world”.
Knowing he had to throw himself into something he believed in, he left DHL in July 2010 after a 22-year career. “It was hard the first year. Friends I thought were friends were no longer friends. It was lonely. You realize how different life is without that name card.”
But he downsized his life, and persevered. He built up a website, wrote blogs, organized events and fund-raising activities and published a magazine.
Among the various vehicles he’s created is Humaneity Travel, which he hopes will enable travellers to change their lives by experiencing places and people in a different way.
Programmes will enable participants to visit NGOs and learn about social enterprise projects across the world, where due diligence by the Humaneity organisation has been done to ascertain their sustainable development.
The first trip it’s organizing is to Sri Lanka. Scheduled from September 30 to October 9, the trip will begin with a four-day community project with Volunteer Sri Lanka (VSL) located in Galle. Founded by Sri Lankan Janaka de Silva, VSL currently operates 16 volunteer placement programmes and in addition, sponsors individual initiatives such as sponsoring children’s education, installing fresh water systems for communities and building toilet and shower facilities for schools.
Based on a group of 10-16 participants on a twin share basis, the 10-day trip is priced at AUD2040/S$2642, out of which AUD300/S$388 goes towards the fundraising portion included in the trip cost.
All participants will have to raise an additional AUD700/S$906 prior to the group’s departure on September 30. This will enable them to embark on the signature project, which is to build a family a new two-bedroom home. This will provide the necessities needed for the family to enjoy safety and security, privacy, fresh running water, a functioning toilet a clean kitchen and a shower facility.
Following the conclusion of the community project, participants will head off to a six-day sightseeing tour through the Yala National Park, Nuwara Eliya, Kandy and Ngombo.
Humaneity Travel’s partner is World Expeditions of Australia and Philpott says some exciting programmes are being put together. “This is another step in the Humaneity organisation’s vision to create a more socially conscious traveller who gets to experience first hand the challenges of NGOs around the world.”
World Expeditions’ Responsible Travel Manager Donna Lawrence said, “This programme has been tailored for Asia Pacific travellers who wish to combine both community work and sightseeing in one of Asia’s emerging destinations. At the same time, the programme also works out well for companies as part of their CSR activities”.
For more information, contact [email protected]
