To be approved in the KA Annual Meeting February 2025

REPORT 2024
1. Bonnie Thurber was the Chairperson, Terry Smith was the Deputy Chairperson and Stellan Kinberg was the Treasurer in 2022-2025. Board Members are listed at:    https://www.kidlink.net/index.php/ka-board-2024/. :
The Board had only one meeting in January 2024, starting on a Sunday in asynchronous mode and ending the next Sunday in Skype Board chat or Google Meet at about 18.30 IST (IST=India Standard Time). Board meeting minutes were sent to Kidlink Association members as soon as they were approved by the Board. The Board continued with a subgroup, an Executive Board (Bonnie, Terry, and Stellan), who prepared board meetings allowing us to plan ahead for supporting the various Kidlink affairs. In November 2024, Lusine Jhangiryan was invited and joined the Executive Board. The executive board met between two and four times per month. The Board Members met with Terry in impromptu meetings in 2024.  He supported Bonnie as she moved into an apartment in Appleton, WI. In June 2024, Bonnie moved back to Illinois.

During 2024, Stellan found out that he had to be Chairman of Kidlink to have Kidlink’s Bank account reside in Italy. The account in Italy was closed on January 3, 2025.

2. KA- Membership and Sponsorship

Kidlink Association had positive numbers. This past year we have maintained low membership fees for low-income countries.

In 2024, we ran into a problem.  There was no money to pay for www.kidlink.org.  The server was too expensive for our group.  Kidlink.org was erased but we still have the backup tapes.  Stellan came up with a plan using backups of the web server to create a history of Kidink.org. This is described below in the Plan 2025 section for Kidlink Dialog and Documentation.

3. Kidlink Volunteers

REPORT 2024
Kidlink Volunteers in 2024 consisted of the Executive Board members, regular board members, and the deputy board members listed on Kidlink.net. 

4. Kidlink Dialog and Documentation

REPORT 2024
We managed several Facebook groups, supported the dialog in these groups, and gave information about our projects. The Kidlink International FB page was a major location for posting overall Kidlink project information. All information about Kidlink and its projects was published on www.kidlink.net. We tried to have our information written in English with a high readability index so that Google Translate and similar online translation services can make readable translations.

We decided to drop our Twitter group which was created years ago and that has not been used in any real way by Kidlink project leaders or members.  https://twitter.com/KidlinkProject  Also, we maintained a Kidlink YouTube channel for sharing videos. www.youtube.com/user/KidlinkProject

5. Global Dialog and Youth Engagement

REPORT 2024
During 2016-2024. Kidlink Association has worked with project dialogues including Online dialogues in KidSpace, Facebook, and email. Kidlink Leaders used Padlet, Flipgrid, and Wakelet for asynchronous project dialog. We were not successful in locating youth leaders willing to help out with the youth committee and in the board meetings.

We created a WhatsApp group called The Kidlink KidCafe for both adults and kids over 16 who would like to work in Kidlink management.  Adults would be Administrators.  After kids turn 16 and have been in a Kidlink project, they could join the WhatsApp KidCafe group. The idea was that some kids could be trusted to be moderators for this group so Kids feel safe.  This Whatsapp group was not used in 2024.

In 2024, it was proposed that with teacher approval and guidance, it could be possible for students to become Kidlink Project volunteers within the projects they are in – this would honor the goals in article 13, “to promote a global dialogue among the youth of the world,” for example. It would be nice to have students create, replace, and manage a WhatsApp group that could replace our old Kid center. This proposal did not advance as no students became volunteers during 2024.

6. What Kidlink offers

REPORT 2024
Kidlink projects in 2024 offered educational venues for students to interact with each other from many different locations around the world: Kazakhstan, Russia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, and the United States.

7. Other Forms and Media

REPORT 2024
Flipgrid, a video tool, was used by Lusine in her project “Schools Around the World.” FlipGrid was discontinued in October 2024 and is no longer available to classrooms.  Aigul used Wakelet in Where Do I Live. Larisa used Facebook in Doves for Peace, Terry used email,  Facebook, and Kidlink.net for the Landmark Project.

8. Other Social Networks

REPORT 2024
Kidlink FaceBook closed groups are:
Landmark FB is moderated by Terry and will continue. 
Doves for Peace FB was moderated by Larissa.  She is leaving the project and we will keep the FB page open for a while, Terry will moderate it, looking for someone to take over the project.Where Do I Live was moderated by Aigul Ishangaliyeva and Terry Smith. – Aigul will not run this project. Terry will moderate the FB group, looking for someone to take over the project.

9. PROJECTS

REPORT 2024 
In 2024, Kidlink managed projects that were run in Kidspace, Kidlink.net and in FB groups. Those projects were Across the Sky, Schools Around the World, Landmark, Where Do I Live, Doves for Peace and Fast Plants.

PLAN 2025

Currently Landmark, Across the Sky, Fast Plants and Schools Around the World are set to run again in 2025. 

Kidlink Project Proposal 2025 

The Kidlink.org account including Kidspace, Moodle, and our old registration will be completely closed.  Kidlink.org will remain as the name for Kidlink history pages and will run on webmasters.com.  

In this proposal, active projects with interested project leaders will continue to run those projects.    

The Kidlink funds for maintaining web hosting will be managed by Terry through a PayPal account registered in the USA. As needed, these funds will be requested as donations from people (Friends of Kidlink), who are not members of an association but are interested in keeping these free projects alive. The yearly cost of our servers and domain renewal will be made clear on our website and to potential donors as approximately $400. Terry will keep a spreadsheet for incoming funds, donors, and outgoing payments. This information will be available to any donors and to project leaders. Co-Leaders may have meetings periodically in Whatsapp or Zoom inviting project leaders and “Friends of Kidlink” to attend. Co-Leaders could post a calendar of these meetings either on FB or on Kidlink.net. The existing Kidlink Board’s Facebook page could still be used as a communication tool. KA Membership and Sponsorship will not be part of our FaceBook pages.

KIDLINK VOLUNTEERS
PLAN 2025 

We will seek more younger volunteers who can help with running educational projects.  

KIDLINK DIALOG AND DOCUMENTATION
PLAN 2025 — Stellan Kinberg’s Plan Kidlink History

1. Backup all HTML code for Odd de Presno’s story pages onto an external hard drive.
2. Backup all images, text and comments from Kidspace onto an external hard drive.
3. Close Kidspace and Moodle on www.kidink.org including the old server and all other files.
4. Develop a webhost for  www.kidlink.org on Webmasters.com.
5. Restore the Kidspace database, images and all HTML on the new Webmasters host account.
6. When the History pages are completed,  we will have a Kidlink Party like the old IRC parties but we will be using Zoom and IRC in Moodle. 
7.  We can keep a copy of the database on a DVD. 

 We will continue to manage Facebook groups, support the dialog in these groups, and give information about our projects. We will continue the Kidlink International FB page.

We are dropping our Twitter group https://twitter.com/KidlinkProject As applicable, we will try to share future videos on our Kidlink YouTube channel. www.youtube.com/user/KidlinkProject

All information about Kidlink and its projects will continue to be published on www.kidlink.net, written in English with a high readability index so that Google Translate and similar online translation services can make readable translations.

GLOBAL DIALOG AND YOUTH ENGAGEMENT
PLAN 2025

Our original Articles of Association (AofA) Article 3 says: “Its purpose is to promote a global dialogue among the youth of the world….  The Association emphasizes online communication but also supports communications in other forms and media. Although we would no longer be a formal association, this is still an admirable goal.

The Kidlink Project does not have its own tools to allow kids to dialog between themselves. We invite and help our teachers to connect their students with the projects in a safe way using tools already available on the Internet. This includes Wakelet, Google docs, Padlet, Whatsapp, and Zoom for project dialog. 

WHAT KIDLINK OFFERS
PLAN 2025 

We hope to continue as many projects as we can that are listed on our educational website, Kidlink.net. We will encourage the current deputy board members, such as Alice Durgaryan, Nirmaladevi Kandasamy, ChienWei Hui, Claire Wu and others to become project managers. We will continue to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), https://sdgs.un.org/goals and would like to have them recognized within our projects.  

OTHER FORMS AND MEDIA
PLAN 2025 

The Kidlink.net educational project site will continue to list project information for joining, as well as listing projects that are in need of volunteer project managers. 

PROJECTS
PLAN 2025

Currently, only Landmark, Across the Sky, Schools Around the World, and Fast Plants are set to run again in 2025.  David Donat  and Claire Wu have expressed interest in running D/D again. Terry has been working on a Moodle prototype D/D using Manoel’s Moodle space in Brazil. Mari Kharitonashvili (from Georgia) discussed her plan with Terry for a new Kidlink Project called Master Chef Challenge.  A draft/outline is underway and start dates are TBD.

Board Members Approval
Bonnie Thurber
Stellan Kinberg
Terry Smith
Dung Nguyen
Alice Durgaryan
Nirmaladevi Kandasamy
Lucine Jhangiryan
ChienWei Hui
Claire Wu