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Letter to United Airlines
Eileen M. Younglove
Manager - Contributions
United Airlines
Dear Eileen,
My name is Nick Moraitis. I'm a 17-year-old teenager from Melbourne in
Australia. I am one of 130 young people currently developing the ation1.net global community for young people. I'm writing to you today
hoping that United Airlines is interested in supporting Nation1 with some travel assistance.
Nation1.net, which will be launched online later this year, will we be a major Internet destination for young people interested in making a positive difference - to their local communities and to the world. The latest technologies will connect a massive number of young people in an online environment: sharing ideas, news and views on important world issues that effect their lives - and assisting each other to do something practical about them. We are placing special emphasis on involvement from a diverse group of youth: not just wealthy white students from America, but a range of young people from around the world. Therefore, one of the key challenges - and features of Nation1 - will be multilingual support, allowing youth to communicate across the barrier of language.
At the end of 1998, the Media Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology brought 100 young people aged 10-16 from 54 different countries to Boston to discuss how to use technology to shape a positive future. Nation1, was the lead project announced. Over the last year, we have considerably fleshed out the concept and found many partners to assist us - leading development organisations like Oxfam, and United Nations agencies like UNICEF; as well as high-profile people who were very important in the invention and development of computers and the Internet. We are also working with a large number of youth - especially via our partnerships with the Global Youth Action Network and the Forefront Leaders Network (the organisation of previous winners of the Reebok Human Rights Youth in Action award).
Many of our participants and partner organisations have made an
inspiring contribution to make the world a better place already - striving for an end to child labor, for peace, for prevention of school violence or local recycling. Just this week, five of our participants (from the US, Canada, India and the UK) were honoured with the Disney/McDonalds Millennium Dreamer Award presented by Christopher Reeve at an event in Florida.
Last year, when we were researching and developing the concept, we received a small amount of funding and in-kind donations from (amongst others) Swatch, Sega, MIT, the Lions Clubs, Apple, Compaq and American Airlines. This enabled us to attend and present key-note speeches at a range of major youth and adult events, including the Hague Appeal for Peace, the State of the World Forum, the First International Youth Services Models Conference and the White House Millennium Celebrations.
Having 'perfected' our concept, this year we (all are young people mostly under 13-19) have been trying to establish a more 'solid' footing for our actual development, including the establishment of a non-profit, the employment of some staff to assist us and also more 'reliable' sponsorship arrangements. Soon, we will turn to programming and then promotion. Understandably, our needs this year are much greater than last.I am hoping that United Airlines would be interested in sponsoring all our airline travel. This year (June-June 2001) I would guess this would involve about 3 round-the-world trips, 15 return internal USA trips and 20 other return international trips (eg. Paris - NYC, or Sydney to Beijing). As our needs are relatively unfixed at this point, any sponsorship would mean us both remaining relatively flexible.
If you do not find this wider sponsorship potential interesting, you might consider simply sponsoring the flights we can currently confirm:
- a return flight around the 29th of June (arriving back around the 17th of July from Brisbane Australia to Beijing and another from New Delhi to Beijing. This is to faciliate our participation in the annual conference of our partners, the International Educational and Resource Network. - Four return flights from the USA around October 20th (returning October 20th) to Sydney. One flight from Argentina to Sydney, for our launch and presentation at the International Youth Parliament.
That said, I really do hope you will consider the wider sponsorship
possibility.
Even in development, Nation1 is already a high-profile project, having
received feature write-ups in the New York Times, Businessweek, USA Today, and a very wide range of foreign newspapers and other media. All participants and partners in Nation1 believe young people are an amazing un-tapped 'energy' in the fight against the world's greatest problems. Nation1 is about mobilising young people to make a difference.
Through Nation1, I've made some amazing global friends (who I will keep and visit in real life throughout my life), learnt a lot about the problems other people my age face - and been inspired by the stories of others who are making amazing changes (like the Colombian Children's movement for peace, with more than 2.3milion participants - or the street-child 'unions' of india). Our aim with Nation1 is to create a website with a truly global outlook promoting cross-cultural interaction and action. A global airline is therefore a natural partner.
As with our past sponsorships, we would hope to work with United to ensure the maximum value for your donation. Dependent on the value of the donation, we would place your logos on our website, endorse the airline, agree for the Nation1 'name' to be used within United branding, provide 'advice' or feedback on your airline from a youth perspective, supply any interesting statistics which emerge from Nation1 user surveys once the network is launched (for instance regarding young people and travel), provide members of our taskforces to speak at your company events, and refer to the sponsorship in our press releases. Of course, we'd also be very interested in hearing any other ways we could assist United. Our thinking goes that the more young people like us can engage with companies like yours and present our views (on world peace - or travel!) the more you can tailor your services to better match the needs of youth. A practical example of giving 'youth a voice'.
We are in the process of establishing our own non-profit organisation, as I noted. However, in the meantime, MIT Media Lab is acting as our non-profit legal host. If you are interested, I will provide you with any more specific details. If you would like to speak to an adult at MIT, try our MIT Liason, Warren Sack, wsack@media.mit.edu - Phone 617/253-4564.
Alternatively, I could put you in touch with one of our youth participants in the USA for phone discussions within an appropriate timezone :)
Otherwise, I am very much looking foward to hearing from you.
warm regards,
Nick Moraitis