Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my honour to receive Reader's Digest Inspiring Singaporean Award. I hope that this win will help raise awareness for my project of passion, CancerStory.com.

Facing a life-threatening illness such as cancer is definitely a traumatic experience for many people. Cancer remains a taboo in our society and many people are reluctant to talk about it. Sadly, the number of people contracting cancer is on the rise. As people become IT savvy, I reckon the Internet is the best avenue to reach out and help pro-active cancer patients and their families cope with the cancer challenge.

My initiative when setting up CancerStory was to continue my late mother's spirit of caring and sharing. My mother believed that it is a blessing to be able to give and help others. CancerStory mascot, Humanity will promote this spirit and help to raise funds for the less fortunate. In order to instill this value among young children, I would like to take this opportunity to launch the cartoon character of Humanity on this bookmark. This cartoon was designed by Mr Cheng Yew Chung, a respectable cartoonist, who did it free of charge in support of Cancerstory.com. If you share my mission, please help me to distribute the bookmarks. We are currently helping the Children's Cancer Foundation to raise funds under CancerStory Humanity-Golden Kids Programme. As part of the programme, Ms Florence Shen, a local artist has kindly contributed her painting to be sold for S$688.00 towards helping children living with childhood cancer.

Despite my moderate success, my attempts to reach out to more cancer patients and their families have been an uphill task because I have refused to succumb to commercialization of my web site. I am grateful to the National Volunteer Centre for giving out the Volunteer Development Grant to defray the costs of running CancerStory for the second year. To show my heartfelt appreciation to the National Volunteer Centre, I am glad to have the presence of their Executive Director Mrs Tan Chee Koon to share my joy on this auspicious occasion. The winning of this award is a bonus to me and I hope that it will heighten the awareness of CancerStory.com. Without publicity, it is certainly very difficult to reach out to cancer patients and their families. People tend to shun away from the word - CANCER. Ahead of me, I see a long journey fraught with difficulties as it is not easy to get free publicity.

"Who cares if you have the greatest web site in the world if no one knows where you are?" Therefore I am very grateful to Mr Peter Dockrill, Editor In-chief of Reader's Digest English Asia Edition who will be featuring CancerStory in one of their issues next year. With its 2.7 million strong readership spread across Asian countries, it will certainly help to raise awareness of CancerStory among people living in Asia. I would like for my web site to reach out to as many cancer patients and their families as possible so that they will come forward to share their cancer experiences and provide online support to one another from the comfort of their homes at any time.

My family and I started CancerStory on our own and went through many obstacles in the course of building the web site. Today, we are no longer alone. We have many keen supporters, helping and supporting us in every way. Also with the overwhelming support of web surfers, CancerStory.com won the BusinessOnline Readers' Choice Award in the recent Asian Internet Awards 2001 competition.

CancerStory began with a sad story, the death of my mother. It was my mother's greatest wish to see a medical breakthrough in discovering a cure for cancer. Though she did not survive to see her wish fulfilled, my family and I will try our best to provide online help to cancer patients and their families until the arrival of this day. When this happens, no tears need be shed from cancer anymore. CancerStory shall end with a beautiful story. Thank you!