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Thanks to the donations of many supporters just like you, we successfully broke through our $25,000 end of year fundraising goal and all your individual donations in December 2019 were matched for a total of $57,000!

Here’s just a few examples of the many ways in which your donations are enabling Kidpower to reach and help vulnerable children, teens, and adults, with skills and knowledge to take charge of their own safety and the safety of people in their care – as we forge ahead in 2020 with our goal of reaching one million more people worldwide with skills to help them be safe and build healthy relationships. We are:

  Training more people to help others around the world! Our Instructor Certification and Core Program Trainings in January and April are bringing in committed, caring, adults to work with several of our California locations, and our North Carolina and Texas Centers in the US – as well as new instructor candidates from around the world – including Bangladesh, Germany, Russia, Quebec, Ecuador, and Nepal; some of whom are serving children and families who struggle with very difficult life challenges, such as extreme poverty, exploitation, and violence.

  Providing more workshops and services for at-risk individuals. This year Kidpower will provide hundreds of workshops tailored to the needs of vulnerable people who have a higher risk of maltreatment or safety concerns around the world. Some of these efforts include:

  • Physical and social safety skills for over 1,000 people with disabilities, along with staff at their schools and support programs.
  • Social safety workshops for more than 50 migrant families, presented in English and Spanish with bi-lingual workbooks to take home.
  • Setting Boundaries & Consent Skills’ social safety workshops in classrooms for hundreds of upcoming middle-school students and their teachers.
  • Upbeat, fun workshops for children and parents who are experiencing relationship violence and homelessness, with skills for building healthy relationships and to stop and prevent abuse and bullying/harassment.
  • Training for hundreds of parents and professionals who are working with at-risk youth in child protection and advocacy with hands-on workshops in many places, including the U.S., Montreal, and France.

Updating our Kidpower Safety Comics and Cartoon Illustrated Social Stories Books that make it easy to learn and practice safety skills. This year, we’re updating many of our extremely popular safety comics and social stories books with full-color cartoon illustrations! We are so excited to be getting several new and revised publications ready with colorful cartoon illustrations to support the practice of Kidpower’s social safety skills at home, in classrooms, and during youth programs! Stay tuned for announcements about our six new Social Stories Books and newly revised, color editions of our popular Kidpower Safety Comics series for children and youth, and Fullpower Safety Comics for teens/adults!

None of this could have been achieved without the donations and support from people just like you who recognize and appreciate how critical it is to empower people to take charge of their safety.

 

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Published: January 19, 2020   |   Last Updated: January 19, 2020

Kidpower Founder and Executive Irene van der Zande is a master at teaching safety through stories and practices and at inspiring others to do the same. Her child protection and personal safety expertise has been featured by USA Today, CNN, Today Moms, the LA Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Publications include: cartoon-illustrated Kidpower Safety Comics and Kidpower Teaching Books curriculum; Bullying: What Adults Need to Know and Do to Keep Kids Safe; the Relationship Safety Skills Handbook for Teens and Adults; Earliest Teachable Moment: Personal Safety for Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers; The Kidpower Book for Caring Adults: Personal Safety, Self-Protection, Confidence, and Advocacy for Young People, and the Amazon Best Seller Doing Right by Our Kids: Protecting Child Safety at All Levels.