MY LIFE’S PURPOSE
After losing parents at a young age, bullying and four near death experiences, I made it my life’s purpose to make a positive difference in people’s lives.
Over the last 20 years my volunteer work has included the Red Cross, Amnesty International, a local elderly home and SoosBrazil a foundation that supported street kids in the slums in Brazil.
I also speak in schools and teach life skills to children and teenagers so they can build their personal development tool belt in order to deal with change, and challenges from the past, the present and the future.
SOOS BRAZIL 2001-2008
SooS Brazil supports children that live in the slums of Recife and Natal in Brazil. As vice chairman I was responsible for fund raising and recruiting volunteers to go over to Brazil and support children living in the slums. I spent time in the slums to understand how these kids lived and took that experience back to the Netherlands to share with potential donors. It was during that period I picked up a passion for public speaking to inspire others.
RED CROSS 2003-2009
I was a volunteer in the Red Cross Mappa Mondo Home in the Netherlands for children with life threatening or chronic diseases that need specialised care. Part of my role was to create a life as “normal” as possible by creating a home away from home. I also had the privilege to speak in schools about Mappa Mondo and the important work they were doing.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL 2005 – 2009
Having been a financial supporter for Amnesty for many years, I became a volunteer by raising funds in my neighbourhood and creating awareness for the work Amnesty International is doing.
LOCAL ELDERLY CARE HOMES 2006-2009
One day I bought 20 bouquets and drove to an elderly care home near my village and asked the staff to put those in the rooms of 20 residents that would rarely have visitors. After that joyful experience I found other care homes and supporting them by setting up cookery classes, spending time with residents, taking them for walks and organising day trips.
STICHTING KIND AAN HUIS 2007-2009
I was invited for a charity dinner to support a foster home, I was so moved by the story of the founder and his amazing initiative that I decided to volunteer as life coach to support the children (age 7-17) with their day to day challenges and to look after them when the founder went on holiday.
iKIDS ACADEMY 2007-2010
A dear friend and I came up with the idea to pay it forward and started iKids (Inspire Kids) Academy. With this academy we ran seminars for teenagers with a variety of guest speakers sharing valuable tools to deal with life challenges such us low self-esteem, peer pressure, bullying, eating disorders, drug addictions and relationships.
THE ANTHONY ROBBINS FOUNDATION 2006-present
The GYLS (Global Youth Leadership Summit) program, brings teenagers from all over the world together for a week to learn leadership skills and bring them home and share in their community. I volunteered as a coach supporting the teenagers with any challenge that they were dealing with. For many years I have seen thousands of teenagers coming through the program and see them transform.
PRIMARY SCHOOLS 2022-present
Supporting year 6 students in the transition to Secondary School, teaching them important life and relationship skills.
A DEEPER PURPOSE
I invite you to look around you and ask yourself “how can I make a difference?”. Be it your time, your money, your skills or your energy. When you serve something greater than yourself, whether it be your family, your local community or at a global level, you discover a deeper purpose and create more meaning in your life.
“Change the meaning. Change your life.”
Oscar is an extraordinary personal development coach. He has a broad knowledge of what makes people actually do what they do and he is also knowledgeable about why people don’t do the things which they say that they truly want but for some reason don’t do. Oscar is a master at making you confront yourself and he turns a microscope on making you discover what prevents you from reaching your personal benchmarks. I have been working with him for quite a while now and I have seen a marked improvement and made real progress in fulfilling my goals.