On 6 March 2019, I stood in Manila, Philippines, at the inaugural launch of the Sino-Phil Asia International Peace Awards, and received something I never expected: a Peace Award Laureate in the Field of Philanthropy.

I want to be honest about how it felt. I didn’t feel like a laureate. I felt like someone who had spent eight years organising a music festival in Zhuhai with a group of incredibly dedicated people, trying to transparently raise money for children who needed it. That was all it was, really. And yet here I was, in Manila, receiving a medal alongside some of the most distinguished philanthropists, physicians, and peacemakers from across the world.

The inaugural ceremony began with a morning wreath-laying at the Rizal national memorial, where the Philippine Marine Corps played as the laureates assembled, before a 21-gun salute rang out across the park Peace Post Asia. It was a moment of unexpected solemnity, and it grounded everything that followed.

That evening at the Makati Shangri-La, Chairman Sir Billy Chan spoke of the laureates gathered from all over the world and singled out what we had done in Zhuhai: running a regional music charity festival, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Chinese orphans and autistic children over nearly eight years. Peace Post Asia

What the Award Recognised

Come Together Community’s founding board member Mark Clayton of Zhuhai became a 2019 Peace Laureate upon receiving the Sino-Phil Asia International Peace Award in the Field of Philanthropy. Cityofzhuhai

By that point, CTC had raised over USD 250,000 for underprivileged school children, orphans, and children with autism and developmental conditions in Zhuhai, every penny transparently accounted for, with zero salaries or administration fees taken by anyone involved.

At the Gala Award Ceremony, I said what I genuinely felt:

“It recognises the continued hard work that everyone in the CTC has done over the years to benefit underprivileged children in South China, and will make all of us in the community Come Together and work even harder to give all children the best start in life that we can.”

I finished my acceptance speech with a final remark:

“Whatever you do, try to do something, to help someone else, to help children. Because we the today, but the Children are tomorrow.”

What It Meant

I have been asked many times since what this award meant to me. The honest answer is that it changed something. Not in a grand, dramatic way, but quietly, and lastingly.

When an international foundation recognises your work, alongside laureates of genuine global stature, it does something unexpected: it makes you believe, more deeply than before, that what you are doing actually matters. That the small, unglamorous, year-after-year work of building a community and raising money for children in need is not invisible.

It made us all work harder. The Come Together festival the following year raised more than any previous edition. The award didn’t belong to me, it belonged to every person who had ever volunteered, donated, performed, or simply shown up.

About the Sino-Phil Asia International Peace Awards Foundation

Founded in Manila to enhance the quality of life for all of humanity with perspectives of peace from Asia, the Foundation was established by healthcare professionals, academics, artists, journalists, policymakers, and philanthropists from around the world. Past and fellow laureates have included figures of extraordinary global standing.

I am now proud to serve as Director of UK and China Relations for the Foundation, a role that connects the work I have done in China over two decades with a broader mission of peace, philanthropy, and cross-cultural understanding.

🔗 Sino-Phil Asia International Peace Awards Foundation 🔗 Come Together Community 🔗 Peace Post Asia — Inaugural Ceremony Coverage

Mark Clayton FCMA CGMA CPA KOR — Group CFO, C2W Group | Chairman, British Chamber of Commerce South China | Founder, Come Together Community | Director of UK & China Relations, Sino-Phil Asia International Peace Awards Foundation