EFATE, VANUATU, March 21, 2009
/24-7PressRelease/ -- Hard working elderly, Australian couple acquired a rundown property, with fantastic views of Erakor Lagon. Over three years they extensively renovated and built it into a small successful boutique holiday resort. Now they are battling to give away the million dollar prime real estate property.
They came up with the out-of-the-box idea of raffling the property on the Internet. Their goal was to see that all the money would be used to provide grants for local kids, who will never have the opportunity to see the inside of a high school classroom. Many of the children's parents cannot read or write and live on under $1 a day. In this Lesser Developed Country, voted the Happiest Country on Earth, there is no free education system. The government reports in its statistics that only 18 percent of the kids get to high school level. 55 percent manage to get through to level 6, but 26 percent never go to school at all.
The project to give high school grants sounded easy and so doable. Wrong! First there came the global financial melt-down. The merchant bank, necessary to process credit cards online, closed shop. Other banks wouldn't get involved with this kind of Internet project in the current financial climate, particularly as it was located on a tax haven, tropical island, in the South Pacific.
The local government ministers all agreed it was a wonderful idea. However, bureaucracy added to the couple's problems, as they battled to register a charity. The couple were absolutely determined all the money would be held firmly in trust, managed by a board of well known business people and local citizens. This would ensure many kids would benefit from the self-sustaining project, now and in the years ahead.
Determined to give the project all they had, the couple paid to have two websites created, from their fast disappearing cash reserves. Only to discover the sites were nothing more than templated blog sites, with limited capabilities. Doggedly refusing to give up, the wife chose to enter the highly competitive world of Cyber Space. With only two hours tuition, she set about to learn how to use the professional web master's program, Dreamweaver. With a lot of grey hairs less and many hours later, the web sites were up and running.
Freelance journalists who interviewed the couple, were turned down by popular magazines and TV stations, who simply said, "They aren't Nicole Kidman." The elderly couple tried getting some visiting celebrities to the tropical island, interested in helping the project, but always with the same result. "Yes, they would love to help," when talking to the couple face to face. Yet as the weeks dragged by nothing eventuated.
Still believing wholeheartedly in their project, in spite of friends telling them it was time to quit, the couple put the first student into high school in January, 2009.
Now the couple have to simply wait to see if their eighteen months of blood, sweat and tears will work out. Will the users of cyber space get behind them and will someone get to own this fabulous million dollar property for just a few dollars? Or will the couple have to finally give the project away, because of lack of support and general skepticism in believing something this good is actually true? Will high achieving students be left stranded and devastated without any opportunity to get a high school education, or the chance to fulfill their dreams?
About YouMe Support Foundation
YouMe Support Foundation, Vanuatu, a non-profit making charity, was founded in 2007. YouMe Support Foundation provides non-repayable higher education grants to children from geographically and economically underprivileged areas. YouMe Support Foundation staff and advisers have all been involved in the education system and never underestimate the importance of giving a child the opportunity to gain an education. YouMe Support Foundation will follow the students through their chosen careers choices and where possible encourage the students to use their new found knowledge to improve the life of the community on their home island.
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