hmm. been meaning to blog about this.
shall get down to it.

Recently, Dr. William Tan came to Mayflower Sec to give the secondary 4s/5s a motivational talk. Okay so at first, when we walked into the hall, we saw this man sitting on a wheel chair on stage.


So he seemed like any other man , just sitting on a wheel chair.

Little did we all know that he was actually diagnosed with polio, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down, and it had been so ever since he was only 2 years old...for the rest of his life.

When he was little, he was sent to kindergarten like any of us-but only because his mother begged the school to let him in. Several schools had rejected him because no school was well equipped enough to accept a wheelchair bound kid. But one school did. Despite his parents' efforts, he blew it. People called him names, threw stuff at him and ran away. He couldn't go after them because he was wheel chair bound, so he waited for their hands to be near enough, and then he bit them. Soon, the kindergarten expelled him for biting too many people. Once again, his parents went knocking on the doors of kindergartens nation wide. This time, the rejections were abundant not because he was wheelchair bound, but because he bit people. But one school accepted him. Yet he was expelled again. >.>

So he stayed home and sewed fishnets. He earned 50 cents per fishnet. Not much right? So his parents decided that they didn't want their child to live his life sewing fishnets.

They began looking for a primary school.

His track record already wasn't very impressive, so when he got accepted into one primary school, Selegie Primary, he decided to work his butt off.

His teacher told him to aim for R.I

So he did.

Oh by the way, some where around this time, he decided he wanted to walk. He got blisters in his palms and...under his arms while trying so hard. But he did it. (:

TODAY,

Dr William Tan, brain scientist is best known for his fund-raising efforts for the disabled and needy through wheelchair ultramarathons.

Over the last 18 years, he has helped raised more than S$14 million for various charitable organizations, locally and internationally.

Notwithstanding his disability which confines him to a wheelchair, Dr Tan has shown outstanding strength and perseverance in overcoming adversities.

Academically, he had his Secondary and Pre-University education at Raffles Institution.

Holder of a First Class Honours degree in Physiology, this Harvard University’s Fulbright Scholar and Oxford University’s Chevening Scholar has trained and worked in various countries including the Mayo Clinic in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.



Dr Tan is also an accomplished sportsman.


A Singapore wheelchair marathon champion, he has competed in many international games including the 1988 Seoul Paralympics, the Commonwealth Games as well as the Asia-Pacific Games. Last April, he competed in both the London Marathon and Boston Marathon within a week, which is a rare accomplishment.

In 1987, he realized that, "winning medals, trophies or prize money should not be an end to itself. It should be a means to further goodness and to help people."

Since then, he has devoted to championing as well as fundraising for needy causes in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom. He has skydived, water-skied, sailed and even climbed a 14-storey building to raise money.

Some of his ultramarathon endeavours included wheelchair pushes across the length of New Zealand, Singapore to Penang, Thailand to Singapore, Boston to New York to Washington DC.

For his outstanding local and international contributions in humantarian and community service, Dr Tan was given the Singapore Youth Award, the highest national youth honour in Singapore in 1995 and the Outstanding Young Persons of Singapore Award in 1996.

To acknowledge Dr Tan's altruistic efforts in championing the cause of the disabled, the Tan Tock Seng Hospital set up the "Dr William Tan Scholarship in Rehabilitation Medicine", the first named scholarship in the Hospital's 151-year history.

He had also received widespread international recognition including the Outstanding Young Persons of the World Award (Humanitarian/ Voluntary Leadership) given by the Junior Chamber International, USA in 1997; the Commonwealth Youth Award for Excellence in Youth Work in 1998 and the ASEAN Youth Award in 2000.

In the following year, he was given the Albert Schweitzer (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate) Prize awarded by Harvard University for a graduating student whose past work and current activities have been marked by a "reverence for life" and who has sought, as expressed by Schweitzer, to "make my life my argument."

In 2003, he was honoured with the Reader's Digest Inspiring Asian Award which “recognize deserving individuals who must be able to demonstrate that they have made a difference or are making a difference and are encouraging others to do so”.

Dr Tan is the first person in the world to undertake a wheelchair push in Antarctica as part of his seven continents’ global challenge in 70 days.

He has broken the Guinness World Record of 99 days in 1999, to raise funds for childhood cancer.

The Seven Marathons on Seven Continents for the Guinness World Record Attempt are:
18th February 2005: Eygptian Marathon (AFRICA)
26th Feb: Antarctica Marathon (ANTARCTICA)
6th March: Fin Del Mundo Marathon (SOUTH AMERICA)
13th March: Rome Marathon (EUROPE)
26th March: Xiamen Marathon, China (ASIA)
10th April: Canberra Marathon (AUSTRALIA)
18th April: Boston Marathon (NORTH AMERICA)

-In 2005, Dr William Tan completed 10 marathons over seven continents and raised US$1million to set up a professorship in paediatric oncology at the National University of Singapore.

-He recently became the first person in the world to complete the Arctic Marathon on wheels.

42.2 km race in 21 hours and 10 minutes.

"woooo hoooooooo!"

He braved extreme weather to raise funds for Global Flying Hospital, a non profit that provides medical care to those in urgent need.


Dr William Tan’s tremendous determination and fighting spirit in making virtue out of his adversity, serves as a constant source of inspiration not only to the disabled but also to the community at large.