Q: What is kidszip for you?
A: Kidszip.com is a magical website with stories for kids. It's also acknowledges that human beings like to buy things and transforms their buying decisions into services for humanity. In fact, we celebrate consumerism! But kidszip's role is much more profound.
Kidszip.com invests in children—all children! From empowering them with self-confidence; to coloring their world's with reality and imagination; from getting our youth back in touch with the meaning of "universal human values";
to becoming a resource that leads us to a peaceful way of addressing the divide between the extremes of wealth and poverty—but it is only the first set - it's the tip of the iceberg.
Kidszip.com is just a small part of a big project ....
Q: What has motivated you to work for children?
A: I have always been passionate about child education. My motivation increased when I traveled to developing countries. In Karachi, Pakistan, I saw children starving—flies feasting on their eyes and infected open flesh wounds—in utter poverty. I was shocked, shocked into a reality I hadn't confronted before. It brought a lot of things home. I had thought of going out in the field to work with these children, but saw it as a limiting solution. Something broader had to be done in order to bring sustainable results.
Q: And that’s when you developed the concept of kidszip.com?
A: Yes. The idea came at a turning point in life. I had been wondering for some time what to do that would fulfil me. I had worked as an executive in tourism development, but it was my publishing experiences that finally led me to the idea of kidszip.com. Suddenly I woke up with the answer—and have been running with it ever since. I know this is the starting point to generate money to help children of the world ... and more ...
Q: So how did you move from concept to website?
A: I didn’t have a clue about the online business. I barely knew how to send an e-mail. I had to educate myself, and in time, I figured it all out. It's amazing how we acquire skills when we throw ourselves in at the deep end. I started building the team. Armelle—our graphic designer—and I had been friends for years, so I invited her to the project and she accepted, as did other friends who were multilingual and professional translators … and that’s basically how we started. As the word spread, more and more people wanted to contribute in this “share the risk—share the rewards” project.
Q: How did you find the webmaster?
A: It was a miracle that I discovered Asif. Somehow it happened, and he is, of course, far more than a webmaster—he’s our backbone. Our Editors were also recruited online. All come from a professional background in journalism or literature.
Q: What about your money strategy? Kidszip.com is not a charity, is it?
A: No, it is not a charity; nor an NGO (non-governmental organization). Kidszip.com is a not-for-profit company, registered in the UK. We operate like any business activity.
Q: “Not-for-profit company”? What’s that?
A: We’re a business model building profit for social causes. As an enterprise, we operate like any typical profit-oriented activity, but we simply use our profits differently. We redistribute them to society instead of a limited group of shareholders. All of them. 100% of our profits are returned to society to build or enhance a better life for children. Our team earns on the input they provide, and if nothing is sold, nothing is earned.
The kidszip.com team contribute their creativity on a royalty basis. Kidszip supporters pay money to sponsor our literature products, they can be individuals or corporations. The recipients of the stories and the income are kids—they benefit from reading entertainment through our stories; and from our "education of the heart" programs.
Q: And where will the Kidszip money go to?
A: Kidszip.com is working for children and investing in children. It is a "kids-4-kids" site, because when a kidszip.com story is read by one child, another child is receiving support. Approximately half of the income pays for royalties, team contribution, our fixed and variable overheads, as well as “development into the future.” The rest is “profit”; and as a monetary surplus, it is invested in children. These funds support registered not-for-profit initiatives that provide character-building education for children; that is to say, for kids in industrialized AND developing countries.
Q: How do you define "character-building education"?
A: It’s education in
universal human values. Kidszip.com invests in "education of the heart." Most schools do a great job of teaching children intellectual and physical skills; but not a great deal of attention is given to their emotional well-being. This is the responsibility of the family, but if the family environment is lacking, this may create a profound imbalance in the child's development.
When the human heart is not nurtured, it leads to crisis. We see it in the news every day. The crisis manifests itself as prejudice, drug abuse, violence, terrorism and many other social diseases. So we position ourselves as a safety blanket and respond ...
Before children reach the age of puberty, they are very receptive to human values. They want to know what is good, what is true, what is beautiful. Creative education can be employed to empower children to think, feel, and act with nobility, kindness, patience, justice, courage, and service. Children are little world citizens. They are the leaders of tomorrow. They are the future parents, teachers, doctors, farmers, lawyers, business executives, politicians, film makers, etc.
For kidszip.com, they are the No.1 investment which will surely pay back in the future.
Q: And what kind of future do you envision for kidszip.com?
A: Kidszip.com is just one small part of a new Economic Model in the making. It's role is educational, and it is the educational sector of this Economic Model that can literally change the face of the world economy as we know it today.
As a business it deals with the creation and distribution of wealth differently; it takes away nothing from those who have but—as it unfolds—assures that those with nothing—will have! The ultimate outcome means that everyone seeking food, health, education, employment and security shall have it.
The Model goes beyond (and eventually readdresses) political and corporate agendas that do not attend to the real needs of all world citizens. Non-political by nature, it moulds our current economic infrastructure into a peaceful way of addressing the divide between the extremes of wealth and poverty.
Its performance serves the needs of the developing world and the under sustained environments of industrialised nations; as well as the ambitions of monetary wealth seekers. It is supportive across all the areas it touches, as we are talking about an Economic Model able to generate billions ...
As kidszip members grow, they become the first recipients of the news and events to follow ...
Our world has inherited
a powerful tool
when helping another
is as easy as
helping yourself first
