I have seen a need with a simple solution, my goal is to fill this need and change lives by doing so... Let me tell you my story
My name is Michael Gardiner. I am an 18 year old student at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida. This story starts at the age of 15, when I started my first business - a social media marketing agency. From the ages of 15-16 I worked really hard and managed to gain over 1,000,000 followers on Instagram and learned my way around the business making some good connections along the way. At 16 I started working 1:1 with clients. As my client base grew I needed some help managing my business, but could not afford a traditional employee. This lead to my discovery of freelancing. A freelancer (also referred to as a virtual assistant) is someone who works as a contractor for a business or individual. I found that a lot of the best, most cost effective freelancers were based in India. I would hire these freelancers for $3 or $4 an hour. After utilizing them for a while I started wondering why they would work for so little since they were so skilled and efficient. I learned that the average person in India makes about $80-$100 per month. That made me realize that when I hire someone in India as a freelancer it's a win-win-win, I get an affordable worker, my client gets high quality work and my freelancer makes a very good wage. At this point I realized I absolutely loved the idea of freelancing and started telling everyone about it - family, friends and other business owners.
A while into doing this I realized a connection. My church Covenant Fellowship of Stuart, Florida has been supporting orphanages in India for years. I had the idea that I could combine my love for working with freelancers and the orphanages my church has been supporting. I decided I would make a program to teach kids in these orphanages how to freelance and make a good, honest living. To give some context on why this is such a big deal, I need to explain the caste system. The caste system is a social economic system based on the Hindu religion. Essentially Hindus who are born into a poor family seen as "being punished" for evil done in a past life. This makes it so if you are born to a poor family, and wish to get a good job it can be extremely difficult to do, since people will be hesitant to hire you thinking you were evil in a past life. This stops forward progression tremendously. This is the case for many kids in the orphanages. A lot were given up by their parents since they are not able to afford to take care of them. The difficulty is when these kids get out of the orphanages, they cannot always get proper work due to their caste. By giving these kids the chance to learn how to freelance they are getting the opportunity to dramatically improve their quality of life for themselves and also their future families. The ultimate goal is to break the vicious cycle of poverty and empower young men and women to be strong Christian freelancers.
What I will be doing specifically is this... In December I will be flying to India and staying there for 10 days. During my initial trip I will be purchasing laptops and delivering them to 3 orphanages. I will be working with people who will be facilitating these programs and training them, I will also be getting kids excited for this program (I hope to have 10-20 kids per orphanage involved). From home I will be giving frequent Skype lessons to these kids showing the fundamental computer skills, business skills, personal development skills and eventually more specific and niche skills (ex. social media marketing, graphic design, etc.). As the students progress I will be assigning them online educational resources (e-books, courses, videos, etc.) and eventually assigning them to a mentor.
There are multiple expenses involved in this project, including laptops, other technological expenses, transportation expenses and legal expenses. The $15,000 I am trying to raise will go to all of the above. The closer I get to $15,000 the more kids I am able to help.
If you have any questions about this project please do not hesitate to contact me. My email is [email redacted]
Thank you for your time
Michael Gardiner