About the people who started it all.
This is personal.
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We really were on the same wavelength from the start.
Back then, we were in our early to mid-twenties and had just finished our education. We had saved up to hit the road with a modest budget and with the spirit of excitement and adventure. When we first met in New Zealand, twelve backpacking young people from four continents, we soon realized that we had something important in common. Something that was very relevant to us. From an early age on, we all had what in German is called "Fernweh", this powerful longing to discover the world, the ambition to understand many languages and to get to know many cultures and lifestyles. It's the wanderlust of the soul. And we all had parents who would have loved to give us more opportunities to do that. But they couldn't. There must be millions and millions of families like ours out there, we thought. What if they could pool their resources? What if they could communicate and exchange access to their lives and families, their homes and children's schools, their networks and professional knowledge? But the internet hadn't been invented yet, and we moved on.
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By the time we were in our forties, the internet had arrived in households everywhere, and we had settled. We decided to put our cumulative knowledge and experience into one basket to create a dedicated cosmopolitan community - the opportunity exchange we had dreamed about so many years ago.
In 2009, we founded ParentalPal.Org and turned it into the Global Natives Club a few years later. In May 2020, Amanda and Alan left this life too early.
Now, ten of us carry on and keep their spirit alive. What's more: The next generation is already on board! |
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As a global network, we now give young people today what we would have welcomed so much when we were teenagers: the chance to connect with the world. To connect within the shelter, the approval and the support of the family. To connect in an intelligent, feasible and affordable way and to establish a dialogue with kindred spirits anywhere in the world, a window to life itself!
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Today, we call this "building your famillage".
The Coromandel, NZ, is where we first met. A paradise.
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Today, Global Natives are active all over the globe and welcome new input and partnerships from all nationalities. Their shared playground is the World Wide Web, and their operational team is made up of people on all continents. The registered office is in London, most of the initial financing came from Western Australia and a remote but gorgeous place in the Rocky Mountains.
All funds were provided by founding members. Communications - the voice of the chief visionary officer - is based in the Austrian Alps (kindly associate some Edelweiss!). The self-financing structure is explained here. |
