No Mountain Too High

Why? : the charity project

Occasionally, we all meet inspiring people, people who inspire because of their vision on the future, their enthusiasm, their drive, their optimism or their charisma. Those inspiring people often do things that other people don’t; they lead by example and just do what they believe is the right thing to do. One of those inspiring people that I had the luck to meet about ten years ago is Christophe Lambert.

Christophe has created Mensch Trust, a foundation that takes care of orphans in India. He created an orphanage, Saint Paul’s Home for Children’ in Uthami, a small village in between the great temple towns Kumbakonam and Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu (South India). The orphanage can host up to hundred children. Through fundraising he has been able to give those children a future. Some of the children go at the age of 18 to a university or to a nursery school.

Christophe’s never stops dreaming of a better world for those children. When one challenging dream has been realized, he starts working on his next dream. Very recently he built in the same area a field hospital that provides basic health care services for the twenty surrounding villages. Through the provision of basic health care services he is saving many people’s life in the region.

The main challenge for the field hospital is to provide permanent service during the daily power interruptions in the region. Those power breaks make it impossible to do basic surgery or doing more complex interventions. Christophe’s dream is to have the field hospital becoming self-sufficient through the usage of solar panels.

Christophe’s dream got my dream and will soon get yours as well!

By writing and selling a book I hope to be able to finance the solar panels for the field hospital since the entire profit of the book will go to charity.


How? : Web2.0 fundraising

I will also test the limits of Facebook as medium for fundraising. Starting from one Facebook friend, my thirteen year old son Henri, I’m building a virtual community through which I hope to get the message across and turn your enthusiasm into the purchase of the book. I want to test how far a “forty-something” gets by applying the principles of “the tipping point”, the fantastic book written by Malcolm Gladwell.

The “academic” question is whether Henri will be able to get me connected with whomever in the world? Hard to believe but if Gladwell’s principle is right I should get far. Everybody, wherever in the world is only six connections away from each other and if you are a friend of my son - even in the sixth degree - you should be someone with a heart otherwise you would be dead. Would Steve Jobs ever buy this book? Who knows, but I’m sure that you want to be part of this adventure! So let your creativity get loose to spread the news and start connecting the dots. As a creative mind, I’m sure you want to be part of this experience!

We, of course, will by-pass the classic distribution channels. The book will only be for sale through our website for 15euro [website is still under construction]. By by-passing the classic distribution channels we will be able to leave the entire margin to the project.


About? Resilience

As a connector and a reader of the book, you will not only be part of this adventure but you might as well get interested into ways to get balance into your hectic life. Let’s be honest, our generation lives fast and is connected in a fraction of a second to the entire world, we can work 24/7, we can travel any place for no money, we are connected from wherever with whomever. There are only a few boundaries left. Finding the right balance is probable one of the remaining challenges, that’s what the book will be all about.


When? Summer 2010

As soon as the website will be ready, in a couple of months from now, you will find the first chapter of the book on it, as a teaser. You might be disappointed about the content but if you are a friend of my son – even in the sixth degree – you will have a heart and might want to donate (by buying the book) 15€ to change the life of a child and be a pioneer in Facebook fundraising.