StartUp4kids in a nutshell

The StartUp4kids Foundation believes in a world in which all children can fully develop their talents. That’s why as early as 2009 StartUp4kids started to offer socially disadvantaged children extra schooling on a social, financial and personal level. Thus enabling these children to make their dreams come true.

Our method

StartUp4kids initiates worldwide schooling projects and in developing countries offers financial support to NGOs to carry out these projects.

We are active in these countries

We offer extra schooling to socially disadvantaged children in Peru, Ethiopia, Uganda, Guatemala and Nepal. In March 2016 we started in the Netherlands.

The curriculum

For the complementary education we use the Aflatoun curriculum. This proven professional programme is recommended, among others, by our Queen Máxima and Unicef.

Specific target group

We focus on socially disadvantaged children, such as physically and mentally retarded children, children from rural areas, orphans and girls.

Sustainable transfer of knowledge

Our curriculum is based on learning by experience. This ensures a lasting difference in the children’s lives and in the lives of the people surrounding them.

Extra support

After completing the lessons we continue to encourage the children by means of an online platform and we inform them about microfinancing, crowdfunding etc.

What makes us unique?

With a team of ten volunteers and three consultants we devote ourselves on a daily basis to initiating schooling projects and raising funds to pay for these projects. We take great care to spend these funds in a transparent, cost-effective and efficient way.

Our results and targets

• – From 2010 to 2016 we reached 14,059 children.
• – In 2017 we will reach at least 6,000 children.
• – In 2017 we work with 266 Aflatoun trainers and local teachers
• – In the end of 2016 we started a pilot project in Peru in which our teachers will train the local schoolteachers so that we can reach 3,200 children in 2017 instead of 2,000.
• – In 2016 we started new projects in Nepal, Guatemala and the Netherlands.
• – In 2016 we started a pilot project for blind children in Ethiopia.

Background

“In 2006 for six months I worked on a voluntary basis in San Genaro, a slum in Lima, Peru. I saw that the educational level in developing countries is very low: Children go to school for half a day and have three months summer holidays. However, I noticed that children in the slums have the same dreams as the kids over here in the Netherlands. So I wondered how the children in the slums could be given the possibility to make their dreams come true. A few years later I decided that I wanted to bring about a change for the better for these kids. By the end of 2009 I founded the StartUp4kids Foundation, because I believe in children’s strength and creativity to start up their own little business by saving and investing in their own talents in a playful way. So they can make their dreams come true under their own power.”

Katja Visser

Extra information

Would you like to learn more about our foundation? Please contact Katja Visser via katja@startup4kids.nl / 06 28721773