You see my mindset for the last few months is all about startups and how to create one. I do have one coming up so until that one is cooked I have to park my other hundreds of ideas on a side. But I am really happy to give away quite a few because nothing would make me happier than seeing them happening. And they’re for free, so take it.
A short introduction. You’ve heard me moaning about how the world is bad and we all hate each other already and I probably have mentioned that I really believe in education. However, education became a part of capitalism and the better it is – the more privileged you have to be to get it. In New Zealand, a good university will set you back for tens of thousands of dollars after a minimum of 3 years. In other countries, it’s even worse. But if we think about 3rd world countries, even the primary school can be too big “expense” for the family so the kids have to work from an early age in order to survive. Being in Colombia I’ve seen many kids below ten trying to cash on tourists and I don’t blame them. I do blame society for creating such conditions that you have to choose between education and food on your table.
The ladder
The idea is to introduce education to unprivileged communities through work and talent. It will be very slow but I hope successful progress of upgrading the community through talented children. This might not be super fair but at least it will break the boundaries and myths.
Every school has some scoring system and there are many existing tests to pick talented children in their early age. So the ladder picks those children from poor and unprivileged neighbourhoods and elevates their status through education. Boarding school will take many years but the most important part of it will be constant and compulsory visits back to the community and family. The school will be tough and education will be on the highest level so the kids can easily reach the grants and subsidies at university doing whatever they wish they do. But the key is to educate those children and as often as possible give them a connection to real professionals. Because the education will be hard for anyone who is not really prepared for that in the childhood, their motivation will be regular talks with doctors, scientists, police officers, politicians and other professionals who can visit the school once a week and promote their profession.
Like in one of the previous posts – the easiest way to lift the adults’ spirits is through children, the easiest way to change adults’ mind is through children. If you can take the children from their society where all they know is the career path of their cousin and big brother, maybe they can visit every couple of months and talk all about what they have seen, what they have learned and what opportunities are in front of them. And through that cruel but real-life jealousy, maybe this cousin and brother will pick up a book and decide that they can learn something too, that there are opportunities out there if you reach for them.
The idea is very utopian and would require a lot of polishing, a lot of organisation and definitely a lot of money. But for countries like Colombia, a lot of money doesn’t mean the same a lot of money as for us Westerners. So the goal for my next few years is to create a new startup that will work, that will create that money and those budgets or ideas like this. So if you want to help but you don’t even have money, let me know. I’m happy to discuss any opportunity that can improve the lives of children. In the end, the same idea can work for rural New Zealand, we’ve seen many little villages where it would work because the biggest ambition is to be as good as “my dad” who’s a truck driver. Imagine that kid coming back home 10 years later as a doctor, what influence will he have for the community. So let’s build something. Fingers crossed and with a bit of luck and support from all of you, I hope I’ll manage to start helping significantly very soon.