Gawad Kalinga touches heart of English millionaire

Dylan Wilk visits Vancouver to say how he went from financing Ferraris to financing the Philippines

By JEFF GRAHAM

It can be easy to lose perspective on how good life is in the western world. Many North Americans have cars and houses and will never need to worry about having a roof over their heads.

Dylan Wilk, International Partnerships Co-ordinator for Gawad Kalinga, knows all about luxury. The founder of gameplay.com, a site that sells video games online, Wilk was in Vancouver to tell his story about how he went from growing up poor to becoming very wealthy and then giving it all up for Gawad Kalinga.

At 31, the English-born Wilk has one of the most interesting life stories imaginable. He shared it April 21 at Glad Tidings Church in Vancouver at Gawad Kalinga’s Wow na Wow event, put on to raise money for homes in the Philippines.

Born to a poor family in Leeds, Wilk dropped out of high school at 16 to work for a mail-order aquarium business. After three years of working there, he decided the best way to get rich would be to launch his own business, which led to the foundation of gameplay.com. At 25, Wilk became the ninth richest person under 30 in the United Kingdom. He drove a Ferrari, had $40 million in the bank, sometimes took a helicopter to work, and as he put it, "had absolutely everything I could possibly want."

When he sold his company in 2001 it had 700 employees in eight European countries, and his success story was all over the British press, but unfortunately for Wilk, he wasn’t happy.

"I realized there is a big difference between pleasure and happiness," he said. "Pleasure is a fire that constantly needs to be fueled with new cars, new clothes, new things, but happiness comes through people."

Wilk explained that the initial pleasure he got from buying new things lasted a short while, but he realized that the pleasure he got from giving of himself and his resources gave him a happiness that lasted.

After he sold his business he travelled the world in search of happiness, trying to find a way to make lives better for other people by donating his money and his time.

"I travelled around the world for six months looking for causes to donate to and came back home very disappointed," he told the crowd. "There was no shortage of causes, but none of them seemed to be working."

This all changed for Wilk one day in 2002 when a Filipino friend, who had just visited the Philippines, told him she regretted going because the cost of the plane ticket could have built two houses. Then she then told him about Gawad Kalinga, a group with a goal of building 700,000 homes in 7,000 communities in seven years. She had seen a Gawad Kalinga community and was impressed by how effective the program was.

Inspired, Wilk decided to contact charity director Tony Meloto to pledge US$100,000.

Amazingly, Meloto actually refused the donation, saying he wanted donors to come and see the projects rather than just give money. Shortly after their conversation Wilk hopped on a plane bound for the Philippines and fell in love with the country. He now makes his home there and is married with one child. He is also becoming a Filipino citizen and speaks excellent Tagalog.

In his address to the crowd, Wilk implored others to get involved with Gawad Kalinga. He explained that for between $1,000 and $1,500 an entire village can be built in the Philippines, and that small sacrifices by Canadians can have enormous benefits for people there.

Wilk commended Holy Cross Regional Secondary School for being the first school ever to come to the Philippines to build homes for Gawad Kalinga. He said the list of schools that have followed Holy Cross’s lead includes the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, and Yale.

In addition to Wilk’s talk there were many musical numbers and multimedia presentations on Gawad Kalinga. Filipino stars Joey Albert and Louie Reyes were among the performers.

People interested in donating can contact Ancorp International at 604-270-1988.