FundLife International
OUR STORY - IF YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW
"Imagine if Messi or Marta was never given a ball"
In 2011, Marko Kasic, founded Fundlife, after his own experience of graduating University in London and receiving over 100 rejection letters from prospective graduate employers. When he received a personal rejection letter from Deloitte, he found out he was rejected based on where he went to school and not on any criteria linked to his aptitude or ability. FundLife was founded on a principle that all children, regardless of anything else, should have equitable access to holistic education and an opportunity to reach their potential. The first step was starting at the bottom, in the communities where even basic opportunity did not exist.
After supporting social entrepreneurs from around the world to grow and scale their ideas, Marko travelled to the Philippines where alongside volunteering for local NGOs, he set-up the first FundLife project, the Sama-Sama Games - a unifying football festival working with businesses to create a unifying event to promote dignity. It was while Marko was in the Philippines, on 8th November 2013, the one of the most powerful and deadliest typhoons ever recorded in the country struck the Philippines. Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) made landfall and caused unimaginable damage in Tacloban City and other parts of the Visayas region, killing upwards of 7,000 people and displacing more than 3.6 million, 1.7 million of whom are children.
The appalling destruction of Typhoon Haiyan meant there was a greater need than ever to not just repair physical buildings, but restore hope and purpose in the lives of children and their communities. It was there that Football for Life (F4L) was created - With the trust of UNICEF and the courage of Olga Babina, who took a chance when no one else would, FundLife was finally given an opportunity to lead it's own project and begin work to enrich the lives of children.
Since launching the F4L programme in June 2014, FundLife has reached over 12,500 children through it's programmes and continues to work with over 500 children each week, supporting them in their education and in their belief that they too can reach their dreams, however big or small they might be. Through the creation of the F4L Academy, FundLife hopes to directly work with 100,000 children living at the BoP by 2020. Our aim is to ensure the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 are not just a pretty slogan, but an actual target that we can reach in the communities we work.
We believe to deny opportunity for children is to deny them a full life - Imagine if Messi or Marta was never given a ball.
WHO WE ARE
FundLife International is a dynamic non-for-profit organisation, inculcating young leaders from the unlikeliest places while combatting the cultural heritage of extreme inequality and root causes of individual dependency.
We work with to support disadvantaged and marginalised children through experiential, play-based education and to advocate, through action, every child’s equal right to play, education, and equitable opportunities to fulfil their full potential, regardless of where they are born.
WHAT WE DO
Our unyielding principle is to restore dignity and dreams to children living in short-term and chronic man-made emergencies while promoting global human rights and speaking up for those who have had their right of speaking for themselves taken away.
Our focus is supporting children because we believe that by investing in their education, they will grow up, collectively, more aware and globally responsible to remind leaders that we are humanity. We support all children, regardless of gender, religion, location or resources, with particular effort for children living in acute and extreme poverty (Base of Pyramid) and those living in emergencies (natural or man-made) communities stripped of their childhood.
Our belief is that that every child, even if born with less, is still precious and their dreams, even if just going to school without fear, are worth fighting for.
Our approach is to invest and empower the communities we support, inculcating a community owned model for stability, betterment, and self-reliance. We don't tell children what they can't do - we help them focus on what they will do.
Our Goals:
- To restore childhood through play-based, long-term and community owned processes that are can be linked to formal education
- To work with local government partners to provide equitable access to quality education for all children
- To empower youth and the rural poor to be key agents of change in the democratic process
- To deliver equitable access to opportunities for young people living on the margins of society
- To design bottom-up interventions, cultivating community-owned models of commitment and care
- To support thought leaders in reshaping the way we approach development and the role Business has in society
- To reorganise capital models that foster inclusive wealth creation
WHO WE WORK WITH
Working at the intersection of business and development, we connect key, but often divided, stakeholders to create self-sufficient and solidified programmes to foster inclusive growth. Our approach is only possible by working with those who are not afraid to be unreasonable in demanding change. If we are to fix our problems, we must acknowledge that we have a problem - the first step is finding people who are brave enough to say 'we can do better'.
Local Community
Our work begins with the community - Always. Before we can figure out the answer, we first need to know the question - what do community leaders want for their children?
Once we understand this, we create a community-led ecosystem to inspire and inculcate children in believing and working hard for that goal. We support communities and encourage them to apply new approaches to old problems and we empower them to know and be confident in asking for their human rights.
Development Leaders
Through our development partners we bridge disconnect between strategic planners, project implementers, and social entrepreneurs. We link individual thematic solutions with the means and partners to scale and replicate. We believe that only interdependent communities can foster civil harmony and inclusive growth, and all our models are built on empowering and uplifting
Businesses
We work with thought business leaders to help organisations move away from the traditional top-down CSR and Charity. We design, develop, and strategically align core business objectives with Innovative Community Investments (ICI). In creating value-added ICI’s, organisations are given a business incentive to ensure their CSR yields impact - where both the community and the business share accountability of outcomes.