Monkey business

KIRK HARGREAVES

SOCIAL NETWORKING: Online social networking site, MiniMonos, aims to teach children about a greener future.

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Forget hanging around and watching climate change. Lee Suckling talks to the team behind an online social network that aims to teach children about a greener, less purchase-driven future.

Aiming to become one of New Zealand's global success stories, a Kiwi social network for young people, MiniMonos.com, has 21,000 members worldwide, and is growing by the day.

Managed by its chief executive from Wellington, the online hub was formed to establish a more positive, values-based alternative to existing children's virtual worlds.

"We wanted to create a world so children could have a place of their own, a place that allows them to explore and grow without constant pressure to buy stuff," says MiniMonos founder Melissa Clark- Reynolds, an entrepreneur, climate change activist, and mother. "We also wanted them to have a place that embodies core values, such as sustainability and generosity, without turning those values into a boring lecture."

Many other social networks for children are rooted in consumerism, but MiniMonos offers another option. "Most virtual worlds for kids are brand extensions of major corporations," says chief marketing officer Kaila Colbin.

"Club Penguin, for example, was bought by Disney three years ago, and for pretty much everything you can do on Club Penguin, there's an accompanying soft toy you can buy," she explains. "Webkinz is even more egregious. In order to access the world, you have to buy a soft toy to get the code. For them, the virtual world is the answer to one question: what is the best mechanism for marketing and distributing our physical merchandise?"

Clark-Reynolds was one of the first two Kiwis trained by Al Gore to deliver An Inconvenient Truth presentations on sustainability, and she now brings those values to MiniMonos.

"MiniMonos is a virtual world and social network for children - think Club Penguin meets An Inconvenient Truth, or Facebook for five-year-olds," says Colbin.

"Children create free monkey characters called avatars (MiniMonos is Spanish for "little monkeys"), that they can use to explore, interact and play games on MiniMonos Island.

Built around core values of sustainability, generosity, community and fun, MiniMonos encourages children to become socially and environmentally responsible, while having a great time with their friends.

MiniMonos' aim is to normalise socially responsible behaviour, rather than teach it or preach it. "We don't offer any lesson plans about recycling. However, the kids quickly learn that if they don't play the recycling game often enough, the rubbish starts to pile up at their treehouses," says Colbin.

"Without this 'fun-first' environment, we think the environmental messages would be a lot less interesting."

This spotlight on sustainability focuses on instilling values in children to take into adulthood.

"All the science tells us that this is a 'here-and-now' crisis, not one that may or may not come to pass in 20 or 30 years. We're continually amazed by how astute the kids on MiniMonos are about these serious global issues," Colbin comments.

"So there are two reasons to focus on sustainability: one, because building a more sustainable society will take generations, and two, because we want to show kids how much we respect them."

The MiniMonos team are humbled by the feedback they have received from parents. "Just the other day, we got a note from a parent that said, 'My son is loving this site and I would like to thank you all for providing such a great and sensitive site for our children to go on'," says Colbin. "Another wrote, 'I am so pleased you guys run such a good site. It's great for us as parents to know that someone is watching the kids when they are on the internet, even though we think we know what they are up to'."

MiniMonos is on a growth curve and the team behind it believe it will one day be an online network of choice for millions of members.

"We want to prove that sustainability, community and fun are a mainstream, winning proposition," explains Colbin. "[MiniMonos is] as exciting as McDonald's or Barbie to the new generation of eco-friendly digital natives."

- © Fairfax NZ News