rially concocted and sold through chemists or those pretentiously awful department stores.
Anita Roddick instead focussed on creating a cosmetics company which didn’t test on animals. The products they sold were sourced fairly way before the fair-trade movement, the packaging was anti waste, non-synthetic and in fact customers were even encouraged to return with plain bottles which could be refilled and reused.
Reading Anita’s words from the quote at the top of the page and realising what she was trying to achieve draws huge comparisons between what Ripple are achieving themselves at this present moment in time. Anita was a disruptor and was way ahead of her time. Just as The Body Shop brought positive change to the beauty industry, I believe that socially good technology such as XRP and the ILP will achieve positive and lifechanging disruptions to billions of people around the world who are in desperate need of an affordable and inclusive financial system and payments industry.
Ripple are most definitely focussing on Corporate Social Responsibly in a big way, if only the rest of the digital asset world would take their blinkers off and allow themselves to think like Anita Roddick they may just get the significance of XRP and how Ripple as a company and as a powerful institution is leading the way to become one of the most socially responsible companies in our lifetimes.
Last week I visited the Children on the Edge offices where I was kindly given some time to present to Eloise, The Fundraising Manager and also the Fundraising Officer, Kerry. During the presentation I explained about how I choose Children on the Edge from a long list of charities on the Brighton Marathon website because of my own personal experiences of traveling to some of the poorest countries in Asia and Africa and how their projects had conjured up memories of things I had also seen and experienced first-hand.
The presentation covered an introduction into the Good Souls Group and our different charities that we are supporting. I gave an overview of Ripple and their Ripple for good initiatives, XRP and all its potential use cases, and some of the companies using XRP, Sendfriend, Coil and Omni. Coil especially went down well, and I’d love to get the Children on the Edge site Coil enabled, hopefully that’s something that we can work on in the coming months.
I’ve said a number of times how forward thinking and brave it was that COTE had given me the go ahead to starting fundraising for them, and I am confident that the XRP community and XRP as an asset will fulfil all their expectations.
Children on the Edge have a number of outstanding projects but one that I am in love with personally is their small business loans. One of the recipients of these loans is Irene a 60-year-old grandmother responsible for three orphaned children. Irene used to live alone after her two children grew up and left to start their own families, tragically her son, where her main financial support came from died and Irene took on his children, without the children’s mother around either she now had the responsibility of both looking after the children and providing them with financial support.
Irene had always dreamt about starting her own vegetable stool but due to a lack of capital it never became a reality. During her crisis she spoke with Joyce who had started her own business through the Children on the Edge education loan programme. Joyce introduced Irene to the local child protection team who in turn introduced Joyce to the loans officer. After an assessment Joyce was given a loan of 200,000 Ugandan Shillings ($50 USD) which she used to start her vegetable stool beside her house.
Edwin Wanabe, Programme Director for Children on the Edge Africa said “Irene’s business is doing well. It is from this that she is able to provide for her grandchildren’s basic needs and education. She is very grateful for the great support given to her. She often expresses her joy by telling our loan’s officer how she has hope that, through the business, her grandchildren have a provider, who has stepped into their father’s shoes since he’s gone”.
To receive the loan, a prospective business owner will make a business plan and write an application with support from the CPT (Child Protection Teams). They are given a timeframe within which to pay it back, by which time they have a thriving business, a child in school and a good knowledge of how to manage their own finances.
In a fantastic talk about inequality at Davos in 2019 one of the panellists Jane Goodall, speaks briefly about micro loans and the power that they can have to transform people’s lives.  They’re empowered to go out and make a difference, it encourages others to also rise out of poverty by their own effort.
I love this initiative and it’s something I believe XRP could help with in the future also. It’s not hard to imagine a micro loan company created on the back of XRP. In a similar vein as Nexo I can foresee without any doubt in my mind instant backed XRP micro loans for those in need especially alongside the Good Souls Group and our many projects.
One other project which caught my attention during my visit was the work that Children on the Edge are doing for the Kachin community an ethnic minority group also from Myanmar. While we are all familiar with the Rohingya crisis in the South of the country not as many are aware of the Kachin who are in the rural north in Myanmar. The Kachin people are being forced out of their country by government soldiers in Myanmar and are ending up as internally displaced living between the border of Myanmar and China who refuse entry to them.
Hundreds of children are in these refugee camps high in the mountains between the two borders. With freezing conditions and very little access to aid Children on the Edge remain the only organisation providing ongoing support to these remote camps.
It is projects like these where Children on the Edge really come into their own. Due to their entrepreneurial spirit they attempt to find ways to reach those in need where other agencies can’t and due to their compact size and experience which was fantastic to hear about first hand.
Children on the Edge have a multitude of fantastic projects and I’d encourage you all to take a closer look at them on the what we do section of their website.
So how is the fundraising going so far? Well, in January the XRP community managed to raise an astounding 6700 XRP, we had started the month at around 100 XRP which is quite incredible and something which I hadn’t anticipated happening so quickly. I am now myself up to £379 on Just Giving so only £171 to reach my target of £550 set by Children of the Edge before the Marathon which I run in on the 14th of April.
So, what is the next target? There are two in the works, the first unfortunately is under wraps for now, I am hoping to let you all know towards the end of February or the Middle of March. All I can give you for now is that it is something which will create ripples for both Children on the Edge and the Good Souls Group ;) I can't wait to give you the news!!
The second plan falls on the back of the Marathon I am running and some future targets for us all to achieve. The first of these targets is to run alongside me in a metaphorical 10km race. So far, we are on the cusp of hitting the 7K XRP mark so the idea is to join me in a race to get us to the 10KM mark of a marathon meaning 10K XRP. I want to aim to reach 10K XRP by the end of February, can we do it?
I feel very privileged to be able to help Children on the Edge and after visiting them last week it has made me even more drawn to their cause.
It’s great to now see a continuous flow of XRP coming in daily from the charity splitter set up by @xelleoffreya, I really do love this feature!
I am hoping that as the pool of XRP that Children on the Edge owns grows that over the next year we also see an increase in the price of XRP. To think of XRP reaching it's all time high and the difference this could make to Children on the Edge and their projects would be a dream scenario for everyone involved.
Whatever Children on the Edge decide to do with their XRP, they can be rest assured that the Good Souls Group and the XRP Community have their best interests at heart and I will personally move mountains to see them succeed in their goals.
I'll leave you with the last slide of the presentation and something to ponder.
Prepare to be amazed - Discover unique and unknown fun facts about "Supernatural".
Did you know? The tv series was posed to end in season 5. Unimaginable right? Here are Supernatural trivia fun facts only real fans will fathom.
Kripke left after the 5th season once his original storyline concluded. He never intended the show to last 10 more seasons.
Both main stars grew up in Texas, with Jenson Ackles coming from Dallas and Jared Padalecki from San Antonio.
Supernatural is famous for its classic rock soundtrack, with most of it coming from creator Erik Kripke's own record collection.
Sam was studying law at Stanford before Dean found him and they left together to start their hunting life.
Kripke envisaged Kristen Bell for the part of the demon Ruby, but she passed on the chance to play her.
Kripke named the Winchester brothers after Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty from the book 'On The Road'. The name Sl was later changed to Sam.
The 15th and final season was renewed in January 2019.
The brother drive