Name of your website?Malaika Kids
Your name?
Ted Koch
Your Location (city, etc)
The Hague
Please give us a short summary of your website?
The website shows everything about the Malaika Kids project. Malaika Kids is a charity set up with the sole purpose of helping orphaned children in Tanzania. Malaika Kids aims to help these children and give them a real future. We wish to offer the children a ‘home’ in which they can be safe and secure, receive regular meals and, simply, be a child again. We wish to achieve our aim in two ways; by the Relatives Support Program and by building Malaika Children’s villages.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I visited Tanzania with my Tanzanian wife for the first time back in 1998. That is when I met her mother for the first time. She was helping orphans by giving them food on the street and took the most vulnerable into her home. I decided to help her by sending money on a regular base. In 2003 we went to Tanzania once again. And we where shocked by the numbers of children living on the street, due to the HIV/Aids epidemic. We decided we wanted to do more. My mother in law set up a foundation in Tanzania and we promised her to get the needed finance. Back in the Netherlands, we set up a foundation ourself and started fund raising. The website is a great way for communicating about all we are doing.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
The first website was launched in 2004. This was actually the Dutch website, because we started the Malaika Kids network in the Netherlands and Tanzania. We extended it to the UK and are working on the USA website.
How did you decide on the name Malaika Kids?
My mother in law registered her foundation as Malaika Orphanage Foundation. Malaika means "Angel" in Swahili. We liked that name and used it as well. We only added "Kids".
What makes your charity different from other charities?
The concept of the Village and the feedback to our donors is quite unique. And our approach is quite business like, even tow the problem we try to address is terrible.
What is your eventual goal?
The goal is to help as much children as possible, in a good and structured manner. They should not only have food and shelter but also a good future. Education is therefore one of our main pillars in the project.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
This is very hard to answer. The website is professional. That give a good impression by most companies we approach. But it is just a part of the whole picture. We must prove ourself first, by building the first village. Once we do that and run it well for a while, it will be easier for people to put their trust and hopefully their money in our project. Our investment is time, the success will be measured in the number of children we help. Now we only help 35 children. That is not enough, compared to the time invested. But we are now investing in setting the organization up in a way that we can grow without problems .
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I am a freelance ICT Analyst and Architect by trade (Malaika Kids is on voluntary bases in my spare time). Through my connections I was able to use content management software from a supporting company. I program myself and the help of some of their employees in their spare time.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
That would be no problem. The website is setup with a content management system that is used by Heineken, BMW and other companies. Some of these websites have 30.000 visitors a day. Numbers we can only dream about.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
We can use the software for free and also the hosting is for free, so there was no unexpected cost. Headaches I had a lot, mainly with the financial system that we developed. First it was simple when there was only one currency for the fund raising, but when the British Pound was introduces, things became complex. Once we decided to introduce another currency, we of course made the system flexible enough to support many currencies.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Setting up the financial and governance system and having every conform to it and use it in the correct way. To make it easy for some we added some intelligent e-mail procedures, some can actually use the system by sending e-mails to it.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Being mentioned in company newsletter. We write monthly articles in several newsletters from law firms, travel agents, etc. That creates the most traffic to our website.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Not necessarily differ from my expectations as well that I never gave content management a thought. I did from a technical point of view, but never actual from writing articles. I did that for the first two years and I can honestly say, that it is for professionals. Luckily we found a company willing to write the articles for us now.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
We have been running the Dutch website for four years and the UK only for a year now. We will keep them running as long as we need to, or until there are new media available that replaces Internet. And I expect that to be a long time from now!
Do you have any questions for the readers?
I hope everyone likes or website and if anyone has any questions or suggestions, just let me know!
What is your website address?
Malaika Kids
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