Singapore · Kenya · India · Thailand · and wherever seeds are waiting

Alvin Yong

The Catalyst

"Live full. Give all. Die empty."

Good to do well. Better to do good. Best to do good well.

A life's question

What conditions help people flower?

I have one deep belief: that every person, every community, every organisation carries within it far more potential than it has yet expressed. Seeds, all of us. Already carrying everything we need to become something magnificent.

My life has been a long experiment in asking one question: what conditions help people flower?

That question has taken me from the mountains of Ladakh to the slums of Nairobi, from tribal villages in Jharkhand to rice fields in Chiang Rai — and back home to Singapore, where the same question applies just as urgently. This site is a record of that journey, and an open invitation to anyone who shares the question.

On being a Catalyst

Alvin Yong with tribal school children in Jharkhand, India

40+

Years of seva

Continents of service

Projects at CGH Kenya

Question that guides it all

Explore

Three ways in

The Catalyst

There is a way of being with people that draws out what they did not know they had. This is what I try to practise — and what I have been learning, imperfectly, for forty years.

Read the philosophy

The Work

Since 1999, I have had the privilege of working alongside communities in Kenya, India, Thailand and Singapore — not as someone who arrives with answers, but as someone who arrives with curiosity and a willingness to stay.

See the projects

Insights

These are honest reflections gathered along the way — on leadership, service, education and what it means to live a life that is truly spent. Not conclusions. Invitations to think.

Read the insights

Alvin with the children of Children's Garden Home, Nairobi

Kenya · 2011–present

The children call me Daddy Alvin.

I do not take this lightly. It is the most serious responsibility of my life outside my own family — and the most joyful.

Read the Kenya story

"He does DO what so many people only Say."

— Monika Fauth, Founder, Hands Up For Kids, Lamu, Kenya

The Journey

A life in motion

Born 1966, Year of the Fire Horse. Mother lost at seven. First trek to Nepal at seventeen. First Class Honours from London. A ring found on a trail in Endau Rompin. Rock walls built. Schools funded. Communities planted.

The timeline runs from 1966 to now — and the story is still being written.

Walk the timeline

"Still chasing horizons." — Tasman Glacier, New Zealand, 2025

Connect

Let's think together

If something here resonates — a project, an idea, or simply a question — I would be glad to hear from you.

Get in touch