Dr. Ariel Kings Legacy of Service and Youth Empowerment

Dr. King delves into the Ariel Foundation and the steps it took to make the foundation a worldwide organization.

By: Danielle Austin

The Ariel Foundation International started more than twenty two years ago when Dr. Ariel King and her associates saw that there was a need for young people who needed development in areas such as training and education. The Ariel Foundation has also fostered leadership, entrepreneurship, and community service in youth throughout multiple countries.

The Ariel Foundation began when Dr. King was mentored by Ambassador Alfanso Lenhardt. King was having lunch with Lenhardt when he mentioned that one of his daughters had started a foundation. King was surprised by this and began to believe that she could create one of her own.

“We used to go out to lunch and we’d talk about various things and one day he was talking about his daughters and he was saying ‘one of them is doing something for her foundation’ and I said pardon?” “And he said ‘Oh she has a foundation’ and I said, ‘she does?!’ ‘Oh!’ ‘And what does she do?’ “And believe it or not just that recognition that another woman did that started everything,” said King.

In the beginning, the foundation started with five or six ambassadors to different countries, and as of today the Ariel foundation still has three original board members on the board of directors. Above all however, the Ariel Foundation has always worked with the youth.

The Ariel foundation has offices in areas such as Switzerland, France, Gana, and of course the United States. However they have worked in many other areas of the world such as Africa, Asia, South America, Europe, the Caribbean Islands, and Australia.

As of today one of the biggest accomplishments that the foundation has achieved has been the opportunity to have their children ambassadors participate in the human rights council at the United Nations and getting the opportunity to speak in front of the U.N.. King’s Children have also participated in ‘the right to development’ subcommittees where they have contributed to different documentations that are being used by different countries to shape their societies. One of these said documentations dealt with human trafficking and it urged different countries to implement ‘psychological and physical’ aftercare for those who have had the traumatizing experience of being trafficked.

“A young person came up with that,” said King. “All the experts didn’t figure that out but our young person did.” “They put it in the documents and now it's all over the world.”

One of the ways that the Ariel foundation has also allowed their members to be heard outside the U.N. has been through their publications. The foundation has sixty publications that have been written by the children and youth themselves, giving them the opportunity to become published authors at a young age.

“This is another way in which we’ve changed not just perception but access to what young people think, how they think, what they think rather than say ‘oh you know we really want to know what young people think but we don't know’ well now you know.” “Because it's immortalized.”

In these articles the youth discuss topics such as corruption, health care, sustainable development goals and energy.

“This was really important because there was always a perception that young people or children needed something different,” said King. “Somehow you had to do something different in order for them to participate on the world stage, and as someone who has been working for the U.N. for a long time, I realized that what was really missing is giving young people an understanding of why them being there and participating is significant for people in the world, and how they can use their voice and their thoughts [to represent themselves].”

When it comes to recruiting new changemakers King has found that it is easier to convince the children that they can help change the world for the better versus those children’s parents. In one instance King had children speak at a summit on violence against children. Many of those children's parents said ‘oh what would they know about violence against children?’

“I [said to the parents] well why don’t you start with pictures.” “Ask the child to go online and find pictures that say something that [speaks] to them that they think are important to their presentation.” “Then have them talk about the picture.” “And believe it or not that was more for the parents than for the kids.”

For the Ariel Foundation one of the bigger obstacles that King and her associates are coming across is the shift that they are currently going through of bringing younger people to fill the roles of older employees, and then actually paying them after they’ve worked for a year. This still allows them to keep the formula of the foundation without having the younger employees do everything for free.

Up until this point King has supported children in their communities in ‘developing’ and developed countries by helping the parents, teachers, and other adults within the communities they choose to work with, understand what their young people need. King has also helped them understand how to assess for themselves, in their own language, what the children in their community need so that they can advocate for, and answer the challenges themselves that they have faced, and will continue to face in their own societies.

Once they have completed the assessment, and voted on the top four values they as a community needed to implement for their children, they would then use those values to service their children through a children's community camp that they themselves would ultimately volunteer for.

Some issues that are of the utmost concern to the members of the international foundation today are firstly the fact that 1) Young people are concerned that they’re not given opportunities to show what they can do, and 2) Everybody wants a lot of experience, but they cannot seem to get any of that experience.

“People have stopped mentoring people and now mentoring and coaching has become a business,” said King. “It used to be something that you just did because that helped you to grow and develop your community and you did it because people did it for you.”

“Young people feel like they have talent, they have drive, they have motivation, they have good ideas, they’re on fire, but nobody seems to be buying, there seems to be very little recognition of their talent and their value within this society and their community to help their community and very little possibilities for development that aren't necessarily paid, or either you pay somebody to help you or you give all of your volunteer time and your unpaid.”

In order to help these issues the Ariel Foundation encourages young people to be who they are, and they stress to them that they have value. The foundation also opens up doors for their youth so that they can walk through them and have their voices heard.

If you or your children want to get involved with the foundation the membership is free and the age to join is six years old, and the age in which you would age out of the program is thirty-five. However the foundation still welcomes members above thirty-five, though these specific members would become mentors. Members enter into the foundation as equals in order to enact their ideas right away. As long as you have the drive to do it, it can be done.

Some of the short term goals for the foundation for the next five years are to build a financial endowment so that young people can participate whether they have a membership or not. The next is to start to develop and train talent within the foundation in order to have some of the positions taken over by new members. The third is to develop new programs that people want and new programs that young people might not even think about. The fourth is to have more young people all over the world be able to participate online at their summits through better development of their online presence.

The long term goals that Dr. King has for the foundation is to retire and have someone take over her palace as the president of the organization. In the next five years she would also like to plan out the foundation's financial stability.

If you want to get your children more involved in advocating for the issues that they believe in, or are concerned about, Dr.King recommends that you have detailed discussions within your own household and that you allow your children to change their minds.

In terms of her legacy, King would like to be remembered for the ideas that, ‘if you think it's possible, it is and to ‘never underestimate the effect that can happen and the positiveness of opening up a door for a young person.’