Personal Life Achievement
Sometimes some accident events like meeting a new friend, reading an interesting book or listening to a beautiful song can inspire a person to change his or her life, to act and achieve more. It happened to me, too. The song “Yellow” by Coldplay which I listened to at my home in Saudi Arabia provided me with a vision that I should attempt to do great things when I grow up. I wanted to act immediately and waiting was not an option for me. I started searching for opportunities to do what I always wanted to do: helping unprivileged kids.
With $8000 on my account accumulated during six years from Eid Money and Birthday money, I knew that it was possible for me to start something small. Being a Lebanese, I wanted to help children there, knowing that there are needy people there than in Saudi Arabia. In summer 2009, I decided to start my own charitable business. I spent $6000 of my money and bought a local shop which I organized for kids to have chance to learn Mathematics during summer for free. Math was by far my favorite subject, and teaching was my passion at that time. At the beginning, my parents and relatives were less enthusiastic about my decision, as they believed that I spent $6000 on something that had no profit. However, I knew that I should trust myself and rely on myself in order to get success. I knew for sure that it is only a matter of time.
During that summer, I come up with a new initiative to print out around 500 flyers and place them on the walls of Beirut. On those flyers, I searched for teachers who would like to volunteer during summer to help out unprivileged kids learn Math. That year I had only 2 teachers and 7 students. However, the first year turned out great, and one of the teachers told me that in the following years I can rent out a place in their school for free, provided that more than 15 students show up. With this in mind, I decided to sell my local shop. I received $10,500 for it, making $4500 profit. That year I decided to invest $10,000 from my $12500, and I received a 25% increase in profit within next seven years, with the total amount being around $15000.
When I entered college, I decided to invest all $15000 as a long-term investment in a Venezuela company’s stocks. By that time, it became obvious that my family was wrong thinking that I waste money on nothing, because I came out with $7000 profit within the last six years, and I currently run a successful non-profitable company for unprivileged kids. Last year I gave the company a name: MatCO. In summer 2015, MatCO had eight teachers and twenty-six students.
I strongly believe that success comes within persistence and faith, and a person should never be influenced by anyone because he or she is the only source of success. I am planning to keep running this company and invest more in companies in the future because this has become my passion.
