last week I went to talk to a gentleman called Hans van Leeuwen (www.slimm.nl ). He is an independent advisor in the Entertainment, Recreation and Sports business.

I started telling him our plans for Tjeko, showed him the amazing stuff Ben P did so far (www.bigpicturecreations.net ) and explained some of the things we want to do with the park. I had asked him to be critical with me - and thank God he was!

He liked the idea of Tjeko in Uganda a lot, but at the same time had some serious critic on what I was showing him so far. Not a totally clear, sharp and complete idea, but a lot of 'what if's' and 'we might’s'. Not good. So we're going to change that now! Thing is, I KNOW REAL WELL WHAT I WANT. Just thought it's sometimes better to leave stuff in the middle. Guess not! SO - here's the kicker! He offered us a booth of 3 meters on the 'Euro Attraction Show', a place where 250 businesses from the industry present themselves to about 7,000 park owners and managers from all over Europe. (http://www.eas-expo.org ). Now we're going to need every spare moment to get our plans SHARP. And we will - no doubt.

As you can see, we've tweaked the monkey a bit - to give him more of his own personality. We got 5 different caracters now.

tjeko caracter development

Tjeko needs to be the most 'in the open' development there is.
People that are thinking along - THANKS. If you ever see something that makes you think of Tjeko - please sent it to: info'at'tjeko.info
www.tjeko.info

Here is the sister of Tjeko! Tjeka! She is a bit younger than Tjeko, does very well in school. Here is her profile as of now:

Name: Tjeka
Age: 8
Sex: girl
Spieces: Monkey
Color: Green Orange


Caracter Trades:
- Self-aware
- Friendly
- a ‘know-it-all’ (but doesn’t always)
- Loves to study
- Adventures
- Be by herself
- Explore
- Have fun
- Family important – mostly with mom


You can follow Tjeko on twitter! His twitter name is: tjeko
That monkey is a modern monkey, i can tell you!

Let's build something AMAZING for the children of Uganda.

Tjeko update June '09

We went to see Suzanne van Ginneken, a playground and product designer of Children. Or for 'playing people' as her webside says. It's a small company that has done some remarkable projects around the Netherlands. This was the first time we shared 'Tjeko' with a profecional out of the field. (that is - outside of our circle of friends, Ben is ofcourse my coach and designer of Tjeko!)

It was a very fun meeting, were Suzanne shared many good ideas and insights

. She's followed it with a ton of great web-links, all to get us inspired. With Tjeko we are really in a inspirational fase. Filtering all we want, and all we don't want right now... I seem to have a lot of stuff in my head, that willl just have to wait! Now we're going to meet with a gentleman who seems to know EVERYBODY in the recreational industries in the Netherlands! Looking forward to see where he can sent us next!

We're on our way to build the FIRST social profit ADVENTURE-PARK in the world! (changed it from themepark to ADVENTURE park :-)

It's exciting - keep good ideas coming our way.

Since a couple of weeks I’ve worked 2 days a week on our Tjeko project. As many of you know, we want to create a social profit Theme Park for all children of Jinja Uganda.
Tjeko embodies article 31 of the Convention on the rights of a child, which states that every child has the right to (1)rest and leisure, to engage in (2) play and recreational activities and to participate in (3) cultural life and the arts.

We want to create a 'community' of animals that will help children discover these areas. They are very important in a healthy childhood, but are often completely neglected. Childhood is hanging by a thread, because of extreme poverty, a HIV/AIDS pandemic and the ever lasting turmoil in the North.

So far we've created Tjeko and Tjeka, two monkeys who live in a tropical rainforest.

What we want to do is create 3 animals that represent these 3 area's of Article 31. These animals want to help kids understand the fun you can have with (1)rest and leisure, (2) play and recreational activities (sport and games) and (3) cultural life and the arts.

My question to you is: What kind of animals should we use, and what should their personalities be?!

Help us create these cartoons! Leave your comments or emails!

Thanks!

This page is the begining of something new!  So many ideas!

UNDER CONSTRUCTION