First Major Event of OFSI-TGFI Kuwait Community with Mr. Jayson Lo as Special Guest

 Excerpt from my welcome remarks in the first ever major event of OFSI-TGFI Kuwait community last August 29, 2015 with special gratitude to the founder and CEO of  TGFI, Mr. Floi Wycoco. Our gratitude also goes to Mr. Jayson Logan Lo, who gave a more than 2 hours seminar for FREE. Such selfless and generous individuals.

"Seventeen years ago, I left a dream job in Makati to be an OFW – away from my family and friends, to an unfamiliar place, culture and weather condition. I was literally crying at night and even begged my boss to just send me home at that time. But deep within, I knew that I have to stay on for my dreams and goals in life, not for myself but for my family. But with such situation, I also knew then that I do not want to spend my whole life being an OFW.

Like most Filipinos, I did not know other ways to grow whatever is left of my hard- earned money.  Until I found my way to investing, thanks to Mr. Francisco Colayco, Bro Bo Sanchez and later on to Mr. Randell Tiongson, the three most influential people in my financial journey, whose books enriched my financial knowledge.

Ten years ago, I was just dreaming financial freedom and abundance for myself and family. I started investing in mutual funds, bonds and stocks apart from instrument athat we Filipinos are already familiar with – real estate and agriculture. I became better steward of my financial blessings. I tried my best to only spend what I can afford and within my budget. I had to make lots of sacrifices just to balance for the needs of my big family, experience some luxuries with my family and slowly building funds for my goals for the future.

 Five years ago, I started to dream for my friends and colleagues who are OFWs, that they too can aspire to retire young and truly rich by proper saving and investing.

Today, I am now dreaming for all OFWs. I am dreaming for the Filipinos of my generation. I am dreaming that OFWs become financially literate, so that they know how to save and invest properly for their future goals and needs in life. I am dreaming for new breed of OFWs working on the vision of lesser disintegration of Filipino families because of the need to work abroad. New breed of OFWs who are working on creating an environment for the next generation of Filipinos, who no longer need to leave their families and friends behind, a Philippines with its families intact.

As OFWs, we know the pain and struggle of being away from home. In fact, many of the officers of OFSI are second generation OFWs who do not only know how it is to become an OFW, but many of us grew up with our parents or one of our parents abroad. We can never describe in words the longings of our hearts as we see other families complete while growing up.

For our guests who are asking about OFSI, OFSI is Overseas Filipino Stocks Investors - a group of young OFWs who are advocating financial education for fellow OFWs. OFSI is a modern day bayanihan of Filipinos, OFWs helping fellow OFWs and their families to achieve financial freedom and abundance through financial education.

OFSI advocates saving and investing with the right mindset and strategy – fighting scams and lessening hit and miss in financial decisions.

The vision of OFSI is now a reality to more than 200 members who has undergone the basic financial literacy series for OFWs with our 5 modules series plus the regular monthly sessions. OFSI partnered with TGFI (The Global Filipino Investors) in this endeavor creating the OFSI-TGFI Kuwait community with online attendees from Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Saudi and the Philippines. And today, our growth continues with almost 100 attendees in our ongoing sessions – future OFW investors like us.  We are now playing a big brother role to other OFW communities in the Middle East helping them create similar communities of OFWs.

We take pride in this advocacy, which is being provided to OFWs for FREE – unbiased financial education independent from any business entity. We sustain our activities by the generosity of members. In fact, I feel so blessed that even today, fellow OFWS approach us volunteering their time and resources just so that we can continue to reach out to more OFWs.

Today is such a momentous event for OFSI-TGFI Kuwait community. This is our first major event – a coming out party by a group who serves its fellow OFWs without fanfare and publicity, quietly reaching out to as many as we can. Advocating change in mindset, which comes with constant challenges not only on resources but by the very community which we wanted to serve.

And as our battle cry, we are the change that we want to see the world, the change that we want to see in every OFWs.

In the almost 2 years of existence of OFSI, we would not have become who we are if not for the trust and confidence of fellow OFWs especially to my fellow officers for the year 2015.

Thank you officers, members, friends of OFSI and welcome to our first major event as a community."

www.ofsi.ph Overseas Filipino Stocks Investors (OFSI)
www.tgfiph.com The Global Filipino Investors (TGFI)