KIDS CARE PROJECT TRUST

The Kids Care Project Trust advocates and lobbies for children rights, thereby seeking to create safe havens for children outside school, enhance their confidence, self-esteem, assertiveness, and help them become active and healthy citizens. The Kids Care Project Trust has outlined various core objectives such as to communicate children’s rights to multiple audiences, generate funds for the organization, and create jobs for the community. In an effort to meet these objectives, the organization has tailored an effective marketing strategy. The Kids Care Project Trust furthers its mission and raises funds by printing messages on hand sanitizing wipes and selling them through fast-food outlets where children and parents are the most frequent customers. The messages aim to encourage children’s good behavior, as well as to educate the public about youth rights. For example, one message states, “I am always taking care of my brother” and is accompanied by a hand-drown image of a child bent from the strain of carrying a younger child on her back, while the other side of the wet wipe reads a text from the Convention on the Rights of a Child: “Children have the right to play.” Partnering with businesses in selling these wipes, the Kids Care Project Trust adds value to its products and services while increasing the organization’s visibility and broadening the scope of its intervention.

Nomazizi Rjulili, founder of the Kids Care Project Trust, holds up a daunting publication of small print, and many pages. It is the official document detailing the Convention on the Rights of a Child. "From this," she says, "citizens are supposed to learn about the rights of the child."

The Kids Care Project Trust has an alternative strategy that will simultaneously generate income for the organization, communicate child's right, and create jobs for the under-employed. The Kids Care Project Trust, a citizen sector organization, was launched in 1996 to offer school age children supplemental education in the areas of the arts, sports, and life skills. Its objectives are to advocate and lobby for children's rights, create a safe haven for children after school, and develop children's confidence, self-esteem and assertiveness. In 2001, the organization is serving 620 children in ten centers.

For the last 5 years, the project has depended on foreign funding. However, reports Rjulili, "the current economic strains, the rapid growth of the project against decreased funding, and the need for sustainability, is compelling us to explore other ways of generating funds."

The Kids Care Project Trust is planning to market and sell the products to fast-food outlets, who will in turn, sell them to their customers to cover production costs and generate profit. "These partnerships will enable us to reach a wider spectrum of customers," says Rjulili. "It adds value to the corporate produce, while simultaneously increasing our visibility, thus enabling us to reach more children and broaden our scope of intervention and implementation of programs." Additionally, the organization will sell wet wipes at out-door festivals, events, and parties.

The Kids Care Project Trust provides a training opportunity for young people involved in the program who will be taught the skills of packaging and printing. With the skills acquired, they will be eligible to work for the project, thus creating jobs.

The Kids Care Project Trust Clean Hands - Healthy AND Active Citizens: Wet wipes generate income and communicate children's rights.