Kathy! Glad to have you on here. Now I know you identify with all these cultures, where is home for you?
Home for me is Dee Why, Northern Beaches of Sydney. I feel so blessed to be living in such a beautiful place. I live for travel and I have travelled extensively yet I feel there is no place in the world like Australia, the land I was born in.
Tell me the story of Moeloco and what your goal is with it.
Moeloco is the result of a 20 year personal development journey to discover who I am. It is a social cause business whose vision came to me in April last year after awakening to a dream which told me I needed to make a difference in the world. The words were so strong across my eyes and they continued to haunt me for several weeks up until the point I could no longer ignore this powerful message.
I began by setting up a Facebook page called soul Republic where I share positive words, mantras and affirmations that I hoped would help others just as these had always helped me. Before long, I had a tribe of people following me whose lives I were inspiring. Spurred on by this response I decided to develop product that could take these messages further. I considered clothing, jewellery, homewares. Whilst I was working on these ideas, I started looking into poverty and the plight of kids in poverty which was fueled by my desire to help kids. Not having been able to have my own children and always wanting to work with children the time now seemed right to do the charity work I had always hoped for. In my research I found they there were 300 million children living in poverty with no shoes. I was heartbroken to learn of the devastation caused by children living without shoes. Walking barefoot, often through garbage dumps, construction sites or long distances to get water, can lead to serious health problems and also has educational and social implications.
Apart from the children picking up dreadful skin lesions which can become so bad they can lead to amputation and even death, implications of not having shoes also cause educational and social problems for the kids. For instance, some schools will not accept children without shoes and without an education how can a child have an opportunity to better their impoverished circumstances.
With this knowledge, I realised I would start to make an impact on poverty by providing shoes to these kids and almost simultaneously I decided to create a rubber flip flop to deliver my inspirational messages and create the awareness of the situation I wanted to change. In Australia, the average Aussie owns 5 pairs of thongs and they represent good times, holidays, beach, a lifestyle so far removed from these children’s lives. This gave me a great vehicle to tell my Moeloco story. Moeloco translated means dream crazy. I have had many crazy dreams however eliminating world overly is definitely my craziest dream yet!
My goal is to inspire others with my own personal journey and story to make a difference, we can all do this no matter how large or small it may seem.
Apart from inspiring others to dream big, chase those dreams, I wanted to connect people and create a community of individuals keen to make a difference. The longer term goal is to eliminate poverty by starting firstly with providing shoes to the children in poverty and then being able to contribute more monies that assist the programs Hope manages that teach kids how to work and run businesses to break the cycle of poverty.
What is your association with the HOPE Foundation UK.
We are collaboration partners. At the moment they purchase the kids shoes for me and distribute them. They have ben very supportive in promoting me to their audience and assisting in getting me publicity and providing content around their activities.
What about social enterprise intrigues you?
The way in which it’s a simple business model that can be very powerful and yet majority of people have not even heard the term. I love the way it can use money for good and still be selfless.
If you could solve a world problem what would it be?
Poverty of course.
Keeping with the theme of this platform, could you tell us how you use your difference to make a difference?
I try to show others how they can make a difference by showing everyone we can all do something to make a difference if we just starting with how we purchase things.
How can we people get involved and how is your ambassador program structured?
By purchasing a pair of Moeloco’s and sharing our story when people see them. By telling as many people as possible through all the communication channels we have access to. You could also check out our Ambassador program.
